In the pale moonlight
by imissedyourpatronage
Summary: zombie fighter AU, set in the near future after a mysterious infection has killed all but 10% of the population and turned most of the dead into undead. Featuring: Piper. Alex. Vampires. Werewolves. Zombies. Romance. Action. Angst. Death...
1. the difference a day makes

**A/N-** Well here I am back again. With zombies. I know there's been several other supernatural AUs on here, so I guess I'm throwing my hat into that particular ring and hoping no one minds too much. Thanks as per usual to The Person Who Read This (yes they're back too lol). I'm not going to go on and on as to why, cause they already know (something to do with the constant support and enthusiasm or whatever). :) Also, I have not one single poetic bone in my body, so the poem at the beginning of the chapters was composed by the much more poetically inclined reverse-swing (who also writes great fic). Thanks dude, you're awesome. Anyway, here it is...

* * *

 **Chapter 1 - the difference a day makes**

 _There's a you_ _  
_ _And there's a me_ _  
_ _And a whole host of something in between_ _  
_ _But remember this my love_ _  
_ _Black Roses never wilt_ _  
_ _In the pale moonlight_

 **5 miles outside New York City (Safe Zone 3)/June 10, 2030/Infection + 15 years**

As the stinking desiccated face of the undead monster in front of her got closer and closer, teeth practically straining out of his mouth to get to her as every muscle in her body burned trying to keep it away, pushing with feet and hands with every ounce of strength she still possessed, all Piper Chapman could think was what a difference a day could make... such a mundane thought to be her last one, especially given just how much and how articulately she always wrote and talked...

That was, in fact, the problem...

Her mother had always told her that her mouth would get her in trouble. Her exact words had been "it'll be the death of you..." Carol Chapman had always wanted her daughter to be quiet to keep her opinions to herself. And for awhile it had worked. It was fifteen years since the Infection. they had lived in the comfort of the Safe Zone for as long as Piper could remember, and for years she hadn't questioned anything. Had never even thought to. Had gone to school. Had learned the same things everyone else had, about the Infection (that had wiped out 90% of the population and turned half of the dead into walking abominations whose only imperative was to devour those who were not like them), about the way that the survivors had come together, overcoming so much hardship, so many obstacles, to build the Safe Zones, towering marvels of engineering and man's ingenuity and resourcefulness under pressure. How everyone was sheltered there (how the only people left outside were misfits and troublemakers and criminals, not fit for life in a place that was all about community and working together). How they all survived here because the government protected them, because they all contributed. How any dissent, no matter how minor, could unravel anything (because even the tiniest thread, when unspooled, could destroy the entire tapestry).

Her family had tried to keep the truth of a lot of things from her, but she had always been inquisitive and she had never liked to accept the answers her parents gave her, especially when so many of them were clearly lies.

She started noticing things. Little things at first. And then bigger ones. The funny thing was, once she noticed one thing, she started to see others, until all of a sudden it appeared that there was something very wrong was going on. Her mother told her to ignore it, that it didn't matter, that the important thing was that they were all safe and alive and that whatever went on outside the walls of the Zone, it wasn't important enough to risk it all.

But there was always a part of Piper that couldn't let things go, that couldn't just _forget_. She'd tried, and tried, but then one day she just had to say something.

She'd started talking. Quietly. Arguing. Quietly. But the problem with a place like the Zone was that there was always something or someone that saw or heard. And maybe those people were willing to overlook things when she was just a kid, a teenager muttering under her breath in her high school class... or talking in college, someone no one would take seriously, but then she graduated from university... started working at a boring bureaucratic job and started writing things... and it wasn't like she was publishing them. She was just... writing them. her own thoughts. Jotted down.

And yet... somehow someone had found out.

They came for her one warm June night, not long after her birthday. grabbed her roughly from the warmth of her bed at 3am, cuffed her and shoved out of her house into the stifling of the summer night. In her 23 years, she had been relatively sheltered but not so much so that she didn't know what this meant. That she didn't know what the black van in the middle of the night was about. She knew what happened to "criminals", she just didn't know that thinking things, having an opinion, was a crime.

Only three hours had passed from the time she'd been rousted until the moment she was shoved out of the van just outside the 150 foot high fence that marked the outside border of the Safe Zone. She had been taken from her home to the Federal Justice Building, tried, convicted and sentenced to Exile within an hour. The sentence stripped her of all of her property and all of her rights. They changed her into an orange jumpsuit, gave her a small backpack full of what they claimed were provisions, and then put her in the truck, to be driven the five miles from the main gate to the outside fence… and now here she was...

...staring her own death in the face... as the stinking mouth with its rotted teeth got closer and closer, as her muscles screamed with the effort of keeping it away, she wondered if it had been worth it. If she wouldn't have been better off just forgotten it all and kept quiet... principles were fine when you were behind 150 foot double reinforced concrete walls... not quite so shiny when you were about to have your throat ripped out... fuck... what did it matter anyway... she supposed at least this way she wouldn't have to be a constant disappointment to her father anymore...

She felt her elbows buckling and closed her eyes, turning her face away, exposing her throat and hoping that at least it would be quick...

* * *

" _WHAT THE FUCK?"_ a voice... a human voice, loud enough to be heard over the all consuming growling, slavering sound coming out of the Infected's lifeless throat... female, husky, muffled... before Piper could register much more, she felt the pressure suddenly disappear. her eyes flew open in surprise...

...just in time to see a tall, broad figure (she assumed female from the voice she'd heard before, but it was difficult to tell when the person was moving so fast and clad in black fatigues and what looked like thick body armor, including a helmet that covered her face) brace her right hand underneath the Infected's still snapping jaw and her left hand on top of its rotting shoulder and literally tear its head off, causing disgusting looking black fluid to spurt out, splattering the (thankfully) black fatigues the stranger was wearing.

She tossed the still twitching body to the side of the room then dropped the head and stomped on it hard, creating a loud crunching-squishing sound that made Piper immediately want to throw up. The figure's helmet turned toward her and she heard another muffled curse, "Fucking goddamn hell... what the fuck are you doing here, princess!?"

Piper frowned, her hackles raising weakly despite the situation, the old annoyance at the familiar nickname cutting through her terror, "I'm not a..." she started, her voice wavering a lot more than she wanted it to, but before she could finish, her eyes noted movement behind the stranger. "JESUS!" she screamed instead.

The stranger moved with that same uncanny speed, far faster than anyone Piper had ever seen, side stepping the Infected, producing a nasty looking knife from a holster somewhere on her person, and neatly piercing it straight into the monster's ear. Then she looked out the door towards the landing. Piper couldn't see from her angle, but evidently there was nothing good on the way. " _Fuck_! You couldn't have picked a worse place to take a nap, princess," said the stranger, looking back at Piper... "Fuckin' moaning asshole central down there..."

Piper was about to object to the nickname again when the woman took off her helmet and spun around to brain one of the monsters with it before looking back at her. And the minute she saw her face, the words died in her throat and all she could do was gape...

* * *

Alex frowns at the terrified looking girl. She's wearing the flimsy orange fatigues and shitty survival pack they gave to all the new Exiles. The "civilized society's" way of saying they were being merciful to the people they threw out into the cold.

Growling a curse she turns back and puts her knife through the head of another infected. She keys on her radio as she kicks the door to the bedroom shut and starts moving the dresser in front of it. The girl is still staring at her from the bed, wide eyed and unmoving.

"This is Vause. I've got a fucking stray here, Nicky! I thought you said this shit was clear!"

The other girls voice in her ear, "Pre-check was last night, dude. I guess she musta crept in after we left."

"Either that or the goddamn check was wrong!"

"Well, it _was_ Brenda... and her people..."

"GODDAMMIT I thought we weren't sending that moron on checks anymore! She's always too fuckin' eager to cut corners to get back to fuckin' camp and feed those idiot stray cats of hers half her rations..."

"Normally yeah, but we were shorthanded last night with Washington and her crew off..."

"Ugh, fuck it, it doesn't matter..." Alex snapped, "Fuck... I'm supposed to be picking up supplies, not fucking people. I'm not..." there was a loud, wet thump outside as she finally managed to get the dresser on place, "...equipped for fucking escort duty..."

"How bad?"

Alex swept back to the window, grimacing. "Probably two dozen. They heard her fucking screaming when one of them was trying to tear her god damn face off."

" _What?"_

"Yeah sleeping beauty was in an unsecure development with all the fucking doors unlocked."

"Well shit. I'll call Mendoza's unit. She's about half a klick off."

"Shit."

"What?"

"Mendoza's fine but those fucking girls of hers give me a fucking migraine."

"They're wolves what do you expect?"

Alex rolled her eyes, "You're a fucking wolf"

"Yeah but I'm not annoying..."

Alex sighed, not even close to being in the mood to have that particular conversation right now. She couldn't pick and choose rescuers and fuck, at least Mendoza was actually competent... unlike _fuckin'_ Brenda... she was going to tear that bitch a new asshole when she got back... _if_ she fucking got back. "Tell 'em to hurry. I'm not sure how long I can hold out here..."

"Gotcha."

The real business taken care of, Alex turned back towards the girl who was looking at her with a mixture of shock and (not particularly subtle) curiosity.

Alex realized she must look like shit. She'd had to wade through a dozen walkers to get up here and they weren't the cleanest kills, not to mention the three she'd killed once she'd gotten up here. Her black fatigues and equipment were all splattered with guts.

Her helmet (now also nicely coated with black undead blood) was still in her hand. She slammed it down on the dresser hard, not worrying about whatever the fuck supposedly delicate wiring and equipment was in it. She fucking hated the damn thing and being forced to wear it was one of the many reasons she usually only volunteered for night patrols. But Nicky had been right. They were short handed... Washington was off meeting with the smugglers up to the North and Mendoza was just now returning from a week long survey patrol.

The woman was in her early twenties at best, with the soft, well-fed look and smooth unblemished skin of someone who had spent their whole lives in a Safe Zone. She was tall enough that the one size fits all Exile fatigues were riding up her ankles. She didn't appear to be injured or bitten. And Alex would've just written her off as another spoiled Exie, who would last about ten minutes out here before it all got too much for them, except that, even in the limited amount she'd seen, Alex (always good at reading people even before the Change) could tell she was different. When Alex had first swept in, the girl had been putting up a hell of a fight, a lot more than she'd figured a soft in the middle fresh out of the box Exile to have in her. It had been the blonde's screams that had attracted her attention, but also the string of angry curse words. This one wasn't going down without a fight.

And then there was the way the girl was looking at her. She was used to Exiles looking at her with shock and confusion, and this girl definitely had her share of that, but there was something else, something she wasn't used to seeing. Fascination. She was curious. Even after what she'd just seen, she had enough of her wits about her to be curious. And even her ugly fatigues, covered in dirt and Infected mess, and disheveled appearance (hair askew, face smudged with dirt), she was beautiful. No. This girl was not someone she had any interest in writing off. At least not just yet...

* * *

The woman cursed again as she took her hand off of the transmit button her radio. She ran her right hand through her long black hair and looked first out the window and then back at Piper, who hadn't moved from where she was sitting up on the bed. The woman was examining her closely, the first time she'd had time to take a moment to do that since Piper had been awake. Piper could practically feel the woman's gray green gaze sweeping over her.

The woman was tall, taller than Piper which caught her attention because not many people were. Her hair was secured in a messy ponytail and had been messed up and flattened out by the helmet she'd put on top of the dresser. She was dressed head to toe in black fatigues that were hung with all sorts of various pouches and combat gear. The bulk of the outfit prevented Piper from getting a good impression of the woman's form, but she imagined it wasn't bad, given what she'd seen of her fighting. The woman wore no make up, and was extremely pale, as if she hadn't seen the sun in years. She wore glasses with black frames.

"You have a name, kid?" she asked gruffly, not doing a whole lot to keep her annoyance out of her voice.

"Uhm... uh..."

She sighed, "Okay, look, I know this has all been very stressful for you, and I would love to let you have a nice long afternoon to absorb it all, but eventually all those zombies down there are going to smell us up here and when they put their pea brains to it, they'll find a way in and..."

"Infected..."

"What?"

"Zombies... that's not the proper term," Piper said, "It's infected..."

"I don't fucking care what they call them as long as they're not eating my face," she pointed, "Look, kid, we've got help coming, but I need you to be prepared for if they break down the door, so we don't have a whole lot of time to linger on the fine details. Are you going to argue semantics with me or fucking let me explain to you how we're going to survive this?"

The woman's tone was commanding without being rude, although she was clearly unhappy with the situation. Piper just nodded, knowing she was entirely out of her depth here.

"You ever had to fight?"

Piper shook her head a little. She'd punched a few people in her time, but never been in a fight, not in the sense this woman was talking about. "Uh, no..."

"Didn't think so," the woman said, her tone not contemptuous or judgmental in spite of the circumstances. She pulled a knife from her belt, much smaller than the one she'd used on the Infected she'd killed. She offered it to Piper hilt first, "Take this. If they do break through, which hopefully they won't because there weren't that many, just swing the pointy end at them."

Piper took the weapon, looked down at it, then back up at the taller woman, frowning. Suddenly irrationally annoyed, "That was it?"

The woman tilted her head, evidently bemused by the tone. "What do you mean?"

"'swing the pointy end at them'? That's your advice? You tell me to be all attentive and _that's_ the big tip I get?"

A sort of half snort half chuckle came out of the woman's mouth, "Yeah, kid... what exactly were you expecting? A full tutorial? I don't exactly have a lot of time here to take you from zero to 60..."

"Yeah... well," Piper frowned, "You didn't have to be so snappish earlier."

The woman half smiled, "Yeah, I guess maybe..." she was examining Piper a little more closely now. Before she'd seemed to be just looking her over for signs of injury or signs that she was an immediate threat. Now she really seemed to be taking her in. And Piper could _feel_ her gaze. It was odd, almost uncanny... something about the woman's gray green eyes was just slightly off. Not bad, necessarily... just captivating.

Before Piper could think to analyze it any more, they heard a gunshot outside the house. The woman broke off her scrutiny and went back to the window, she nodded once, curtly, then went back to the dresser, picking up the helmet and slipping it back on, covering her face and those eyes. "Looks like our ride's here, kid. You ready?"

Piper nodded, strangely unhappy at no longer being able to see the woman's face anymore...

* * *

They were back in camp sitting in the debrief room waiting for Red, Claudette and Mendoza to come and assess the girl. The girl looked exhausted and kept glancing at Alex sidelong. It had been a long morning. It had taken a good hour to clear and secure the entire housing development they'd found the girl in and then another half hour to get back to camp.

After they'd gotten back, the girl had had to go through medical and quarantine, the arduous process of a full body exam and a blood draw to make sure she didn't have any sign of Infection (though it was doubtful, given how fresh out of one of the Zones she was). Alex had had to stay by her side the entire time because, as the person who'd found her, she was essentially her designated keeper until she'd been passed through all the checks.

The girl had been passed medically after an hour and a half of examinations and three hours of sitting around waiting for test results and been given the standard issue plain black fatigues, which were at least sturdier than the cheap ass orange shit she'd been wearing. They'd fed her a meal (nothing her fancy ass was probably used to of course, just the basic MREs that the Council air dropped for them once a month), and now they were just sitting here... and had been for the past fifteen minutes, twiddling their fucking thumbs.

Alex was tired and irritated and hungry enough that she'd started to glance at the girls neck (her perfectly formed neck with the network of veins practically lit up under her ultra sensitive gaze, pulsing with... _fuck_...). She huffed, annoyed, and pulled a pack out of her inside pocket, popping it and drinking it dry, sighing in relief as she immediately felt the jolt of energy and (perhaps more importantly) relief of her hunger.

When she was done, she tossed the pack into the garbage and looked back at the girl who was now openly gaping at her.

Alex adjusted her glasses and said, "Yeah I am."

"What?" the girl said, shocked to have been addressed.

Alex hadn't said more than three words to her since they'd gotten back to camp. Mendoza and her girls had left them at the Quarantine Entrance, where all the newcomers were processed, and the girl had immediately been swept into the whirlwind of tests. Others had been giving all the instructions. Alex had basically just hovered in the back of the room steadily getting more and more peckish and annoyed (thinking about all the shit she _could_ be doing). She had noted, through all this, that the girl was handling everything very well, taking things in stride (or at least seeming to... Alex could sense some anxiety underneath all that stoic acceptance). It was unusual enough that she found herself intrigued in spite of herself.

"A vampire. You were going to ask."

"Vampires aren't real."

Alex laughed, "News to me. I'm going to have to really re-examine my dietary choices if that's the case..."

"Aren't vampires supposed to be..."

She raised her eyebrow, "What?"

"I dunno... courtly and polite?"

Alex barked an unladylike laugh. "Sure. The ones that were born courtly and polite. I was born in the twenties in a shitty tenement in Queens so courtly and polite didn't come up a lot."

"The _NINTEEEN_ twenties?"

That brought on a throaty chuckle. "Yeah, kid. The 1920s."

"So you're..." her face screwed up as she did the math in her head.

"Not nice to ask a lady her age..." interrupted, cocking an eyebrow.

The girl frowned, "Oh... sorry..."

Alex smirked, "Don't worry about it, kid. Been alive as long as I have, it takes a _lot_ to fluster you. I'm 107."

The girl examined her for a long moment, a look of such open and honest curiosity in her bright blue eyes that Alex was slightly taken aback. Most humans tended to react one of two ways when they found out what she was: horror (thinking her a monster) or a sort of disturbing greediness (thinking that being an immortal sounded romantic). What this girl was giving off was different. The real desire for _knowledge_.

Somewhat abruptly, the girl said, "Piper."

Alex had been expecting a flood of questions so it took a moment before she caught up enough to say, "What?" Her tone bemused. It took a lot to surprise her.

"My name is Piper. Piper Chapman. Not _kid_. And I'm 23."

"Everyone's a kid to me, kid, except the other vampires," Alex arched an eyebrow, "Bit of an age gap between me and most of the others, y'know?"

There was a brief silence. The girl... Piper, was studying her again. She continued to surprise Alex. Who reflected again about how she wasn't like some of the other Exies they picked up, over half of whom barely lasted a month out in the Wild. Those others would be repulsed by the conditions or so shell shocked by their entire view of the world being proven so horribly wrong that they just went a little funny. Piper was tougher than she looked (having kept stride with the squad on the way back here, seemingly determined to prove that she wouldn't be a drag on them), and seemed to be curious about everything. She'd asked the docs who were checking her out endless questions about what they were doing and why. Not in a haughty 'why are you daring to touch me' sort of way, but because she seemed to genuinely want to know. So Alex supposed she shouldn't have been so shocked by her being intrigued by the whole vampire "thing".

"So you drink blood?" Piper said, jumping right in, not bothering to ask whether Alex was okay with her asking.

"Yeah."

"And the sun...?"

Alex smirked, making a 'poof' noise, "I'd go up in flames pretty fast. It isn't pretty."

"Immortal and all that?"

"Well, I guess you could call it that. Technically speaking I'm as dead as those Infected clawing at the fences," she tapped her chest, "My heart doesn't beat. The reason I have to drink blood is because that's the only way to keep it flowing through my veins. Otherwise I go insane then... just kind of dry up..."

Piper looked like she was about to ask another question when the door opened and Red, the eldest vampire in camp, Claudette, the highest ranking human, and Mendoza, the top ranking werewolf, walked in. Alex sat up a little straighter, her manner immediately becoming all business, and Piper followed suit, seeming to understand that this was a big deal.

Claudette took the lead, speaking with her light French Caribbean lilt, "Welcome to ARAC Camp 13, Miss Chapman. My name is Commander Claudette Pelage. My colleagues are Commander Reznikov," she gestured to Red, who simply raised an eyebrow, "and Commander Mendoza," she nodded to Mendoza who gave a curt nod, "Vause here has informed us that you have requested sanctuary?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Claudette shuffled some papers in front of her, "It appears that you've passed all the medical tests. There's just a few questions we have to ask. You came from NYC?"

"Yes."

"Why were you exiled?"

"I'm... I'm not entirely sure. I... wrote some things."

"Published?"

"No I just wrote them."

Claudette glanced up, "Well... they're getting rather touchy aren't they...?"

"No one even said anything to me... they just... showed up..."

Red nodded, "This is how these things usually work."

Mendoza frowned, "You ain't a spy, right kid?"

"No!"

"And you're not going to run off in the middle of a mission and try to get back to the Zone, yeah?"

"No... they... there's not much there for me to miss, really."

"Except comfort," said Red, "This is not an easy life, Blondie."

"I... I know. Commander Mendoza's troops were pleased to share with me just how difficult on the way back."

Red cut her eyes to Mendoza, "Your girls... big mouths..."

"I told them to knock it the fuck off..." she glanced at Piper, "And I apologized to Blanca here..."

"My name is Piper..." Piper muttered, irritated, but under her breath, so quietly that without her enhanced hearing Alex might not have caught it. Alex figured that Mendoza and Red heard it too, but they didn't give any indication. They'd been around long enough that petulant Exies didn't bother them.

Claudette spoke, "If you're accepted into the camp, you will be expected to pull your weight. Work, train, patrol, all of it. Everyone here does their share, earns their keep. You understand?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"There's a degree of freedom here in camp, but you are still expected to follow schedules and rotations. And if you are out on patrol, you will follow commands as soon as they are given, no hesitation. Yes?"

"Yes."

Red said, "And you will have to work with vampires... werewolves... We have an accord. You can be as uncomfortable as you want with the," she made air quotes, "'unnatural' creatures you may believe we are, but you will live with it. No slurs, no fights, no nothing, yes?"

"Yes."

Mendoza spoke, "You don't follow the rules, or you prove to be some kinda fuckin' spy, you're out on your ass."

"Okay."

The three women glanced at one another. each gave a curt nod, then Claudette turned back to Piper, "Very well. Welcome to the Resistance."

"Resistance? What are you resisting?"

"The constant fucking threat of imminent death," Alex put in wryly.

Red snorted at the description, "Straight to the point as usual."

"You'll have a four month probationary period," Claudette continued, as Mendoza pulled Piper's file over and started making notations, "You'll have a probationary supervisor who will essentially be with you at all times during that time period. They'll make sure you're aware of and follow your schedule, they'll brief you on procedures, make sure you know the rules."

Piper nodded, "All right... who will that be?"

Red jerked her head towards Alex, "Vause here will be yours. She's the one who found you. The one who finds an Exie is always their probationary supervisor."

Alex grimaced... she'd expected it, but had dearly hoped Red would let her out of it. She was a Squad Leader, an elite one too. Too good for probie duty... She gave Red a look, but Red wasn't having it. Clearly they were going to have to talk about it later. She sighed deeply.

* * *

By the time all the formalities were taken care of (Piper getting issued her equipment and bedding, then being escorted to her assigned tent in the human section of camp and making up her bunk) it was nearly dinner time. Alex was annoyed at the assignment and was subsequently not being forthcoming with Piper anymore, responding to her questions with one word answers or huffy noises.

They had dinner together. Alex explaining in short, sharp declarations how the meal time rotations worked and when Piper should expect to have kitchen duty. As with any new addition, Piper attracted a lot of glances and whispers, as did the fact that someone of Alex's stature was babysitting her. Piper didn't seem to find the attention all that pleasant, but was still being strong, apparently having already been aware of the whole concept that there was never a second chance for a first impression.

Alex could see Nicky eyeing her from their usual table, big brown eyes filled with amusement. She was sure that her friend would have more than a little shit to dole out when they were alone next. yet another thing to look forward to... After dinner, Alex took Piper on a tour of the camp, curtly pointing out where everything was, telling the girl that the packet she'd gotten with her bedding and uniforms had more information in it.

By the time the tour was over, it was nearly 10pm, which was officially lights out (most people just sat in their tents and shot the shit, but everyone but those on patrol or official duty was supposed to be locked in by then, though it was never the most strictly observed rule). Alex dropped Piper outside her tent with a final nod, then turned on her heel and stormed towards the command tent.

* * *

Alex scowled at Red, "I'm the god damned XO of this entire unit. Why is it I'm being saddled with babysitting duty?"

Red raised an eyebrow, "You found her. You chose to rescue her."

"'Chose'? Why are we acting like I chose anything? Do we usually make it our business to leave exiles out there to be food for the infected?"

"No, but you know how it works…"

Alex rolled her eyes.

Red looked back down at the papers spread on her desk, "It's actually amazing you haven't had to do this yet. You've been out here since the beginning. Twenty years and not one probie…"

"Yeah, because I've usually been with the entire fucking unit when we find someone and I can tell someone else to do it…" Alex muttered darkly.

"Look, Vause, you did the right thing out there. Looking after an Exile isn't so bad, depending upon the Exile. And it'll get you out of patrols for awhile."

"I _like_ patrols," she huffed, glaring.

Red shrugged, "It is what it is…"

"Red..."

"This conversation. It is over now, Vause..." Red looked up at her again, holding her eyes for a long moment. Red had been around for a long time, nearly three hundred years. She'd seen a lot of shit, survived a lot of shit, and she wasn't to be fucked with. When she said it was done, it was done.

Alex huffed a resigned sigh and turned back towards the entrance of Red's office. Great... this was great... Being stuck babysitting an Exile was no one's idea of a good idea... even if the Exile she was stuck with was as interesting as Piper Chapman might prove to be.

* * *

 **A/N** \- Well there it is... let me know what you think, good bad or indifferent... :) hopefully I'll get more out soon...


	2. love in the time of zombies

**A/N-** Wow, so I'm pretty overwhelmed by the response to this story! I'm honestly astonished at how many of you like it so much. So thanks for that! also, this may possibly be the longest I've gone between updates ever lol. Sorry about the "delay". Special thanks perpetually to the Person Who Read This for assuring me it was suitable for general consumption (believe me, I was worried... but then when aren't I?). Honestly couldn't do it without you! Thanks again to my buddy reverse-swing for the Po-EM at the start (poetry is a talent I do not possess). And I also forgot to mention last time that she suggested the (awesome) title as well...

* * *

 **Chapter 2- love in the time of zombies**

 _And There's shadows_ _  
_ _And there's space_ _  
_ _A trace of a smile upon your face_ _  
_ _But remember this my love_ _  
_ _Black Roses never wilt_ _  
_ _In the pale moonlight_

* * *

The first week was the worst. As determined as Piper was not to be a burden, to prove that she could keep up with these people, handle everything that this new situation could throw at her, being tossed into this life demanded a period of transition. There were few people who would be able to handle such a thing without some period of adjustment. Getting by on 6 hours or less of sleep a day was one of the first things she had to adjust to. Constant physical activity was the second.

From the second she woke until the instant she collapsed into bed she was moving. Alex moved her along unrelentingly that first week, practically pushing her out of bed (most of the time vampires weren't permitted in the human living areas, but obviously Alex couldn't be her probationary anything if she couldn't wake her up in the morning) as her half dozen tent mates watched with varying degrees of amusement. She blearily pulled on her fatigues and was then led through hour after hour of weapons training (guns and knives mostly), hand to hand combat training, patrolling the perimeter, and doing various rotation duties. By the time Alex dropped her at her tent at light's out, she was ready to collapse (Alex herself didn't sleep, so she just went back to her tent).

Alex herself was giving the blonde whiplash. When she'd first found Piper, she'd been tough but reasonable, ordering her around but with no real malice. Ever since she'd learned she was to be Piper's probationary supervisor (or ExieSitter as they were derisively called by the troops), Alex had been brusque and stentorian, bordering on rude. She spoke to her only as much as she needed to in order to explain things and snapped when Piper didn't immediately hop to. It was adding an extra layer of stress to an already difficult situation, especially given just how much time they were required to spend together.

Probationary Supervisors spent every nearly waking moment with their assigned probies, even eating meals with them. Since there wasn't enough personnel to spare for dedicated training classes, Alex was the one giving every single one of them.

Finally, on day three, Piper had had enough. It wasn't like Alex had been her best friend by any means, but she'd thought she had felt some sort of tentative admiration in the vampire's gaze when they'd spent that time together when she first got here (something in the green gaze was captivating, and had seemed fascinated on some level, but that fascination had been covered over by annoyance).

At the end of the day she dropped Piper off. Piper muttered a "thanks", and Alex replied by grunting and muttering, "Yeah, yeah princess..." as she turned to stomp away.

Piper felt her temper flare. She knew she should just turn around and go into her tent, knew that she was exhausted, that every muscle in her body was screaming from the unaccustomed activity... that in this state she might say something she regretted. But she didn't care. She scowled and snapped, "You don't have to be such an asshole all the time, you know?"

Alex frowned, turning back. Piper shared a tent with some of the girls from Washington's unit. They were out on patrol with Nichols, who was leading the unit Alex was usually in charge of, and Alex was even more irritable today than usual at the thought that she wasn't with her guys.

"What?" her own eyes flashing, revealing just the barest hint of crimson shading the green of her irises. Piper knew that, aside from Nicky, most of the camp dwellers (of every race) showed Alex deference. She was a skilled fighter and a good leader, well respected, tough but fair. She wasn't used to being called out, but Piper was too goddamn annoyed.

"You heard me! You've been treating me like shit ever since you found out you had to watch me, taking it out on me! But it's your own fault! i read the regulations. You didn't _have_ to rescue me. You could've left me. Rule 22.4 states that if you're on patrol on your own you're under no obligation to help Exiles or strays, that you can choose to leave them if the risk to your safety is too great, so you only have yourself to blame!"

The vampire stood, frowning down at her, her expression unreadable. Then the corners of her mouth twitched upwards slightly, and the glower in her eyes was replaced with a sort of bemusement. She tilted her head, "You _read_ that manual?"

"Well... yes..." Piper said, brows furrowing, "I mean, you said I should so..."

"I mean, I know what I said, kid, but _no one_ reads the fucking manual! It's 163 pages long! It reads like stereo instructions..."

"What's a stereo?"

"Never mind," the small grin had turned into a full on smile, "When did you find the time?"

"Um, after you dropped me off the first night..."

"But you were exhausted!"

"Well, yeah, but the manual... you said it was required."

"It is but..." the vampire shook her head, bemused, "you're right kid. I have been kind of a dick. I'll try to rein it in, okay?"

Somewhat astonished by the ease with which Alex had conceded, Piper could do nothing but nod once, trying to keep her face stern when confronted by Alex's grin.

"Get some sleep, kid..." Alex said, nodding once before she turned to go, and giving Piper a short, appraising look that the blonde was convinced once again held that note of intrigued fascination...

* * *

Piper's constant stream of questions and talk soon became a background soundtrack to everything they did. And for reasons that Alex couldn't fully comprehend (or didn't really want to), they never bothered her (which was even more astonishing because she was normally exactly the kind of vampire who would answer the question "you're a vampire? what's that like?" by extending her canines and giving the questioner a very hungry looking grin).

"So... You drink blood. All kinds?

"Human is best," it was three weeks in and Alex was surprised Piper hadn't gotten around to this one yet, "animals work. But it's like the difference between a good steak and tofu."

Piper frowned, nodding, concentrating on the gun in front her. She was disassembling it so she could clean it, "And... you've... uh... fed... from a... an actual... live... pers-" she stopped short, not sure if she could finish the question.

Alex glanced at her sidelong, "Yeah, kid, I have, though the last time was decades ago. Feeding from a person doesn't necessarily have to kill them if you do it right. It actually can be quite a rush for them..." her eyebrow cocked as she said this last, almost unconsciously.

A long pause, then, "Ummmm did you ever... kill..."

Before Piper could stammer out the rest of her inquiry, Alex said, politely but firmly, "Next question."

Piper glanced up at her, but didn't push the point. Alex was almost certain she didn't really want to know...

* * *

It was surprising to Piper how little she missed most of what had been taken from her so abruptly. Her life in the Safe Zone, her family, her friends. Although, truth be told, as soon as she had begun to learn how that safety had truly been established and maintained she had begun to lose her taste for it. She had begun to see beneath the lies they were all told, the platitudes they were all fed. The saddest part to her was how easily it would have been for anyone to seek the truth, but they were all so content... and when people did see the truth they ignored it, either because they didn't want to believe, or because they were afraid to lose it. Why would they risk their own comfort to expose a truth they believed didn't even matter anymore?

It was that kind of thinking that had actually lost her most of her friends. By the time she was kicked out, only Polly remained, and she spent most of their time together warning Piper not to take things any further, not to actually commit any of her whispered conversations to print.

And the only thing she had to miss about her family was Cal. The rest of them... the rest of them wanted her to be something she could never be. It angered and saddened her even to think of it. For a long time, she had thought she wasn't good enough for them, but the more she began to see how much they had kept from her (how much they _knew_ ) the more she thought that maybe they weren't good enough for her (which did not, much to her chagrin, keep a part of her from craving her father's approval until the last).

The more time she spent in camp, falling into its rhythms and routines, learning the skills she would need to survive, the more the memories of safety and security faded. Yes, she had to get up before dawn, had to patrol the perimeter, do KP duty, muck out toilets, train endlessly... but she felt truly useful for the first time in her life. As though she was holding her own, earning her keep.

And the entire time, Alex was at her side. After the initial antagonism (which Piper had come to understand was more because of the general indignity of being a "babysitter" rather than anything to do specifically with her), they had fallen into an easy routine. It had taken remarkably little time for Piper to feel entirely comfortable with Alex, which was astonishing, considering that the woman was a goddamn vampire.

Rather than frightening her, Piper found that this made her more intriguing. Not, she thought, that she needed much reason to be intrigued by Alex Vause. The aura of mystery the woman gave off was irresistible, and even after she had gotten to know her better, there was still... something there. Something more. Something Piper wasn't sure she even truly understood herself.

Alex was patient with her, and after that initial burst of pique, never treated her like a burden. Perhaps more importantly, she never doubted Piper's abilities. Never questioned whether she was capable of this, always gave her encouragement when she did well and prodding when she thought she could do better. Never treated her like she didn't belong... It was a novel feeling, not just in camp, but maybe in Piper's whole life...

* * *

They doing a sentry shift in the guard tower overlooking the front gate of the camp today. Probies only ever did day sentry shifts. The Infected were generally less active during the day, and it was a good way to ease them into the duty without terrifying them... not that Alex believed Piper really needed the coddling.

"What about the glasses?"

Alex glanced over at her, "What about them?"

"Well, I mean, I was doing some reading..."

"Some reading?"

"About vampires... Jefferson has a book..."

"Of course she does..." Alex chuckled, softly.

"...and," Piper continued as if she hadn't been interrupted, "I thought vampires had perfect vision. Better than perfect really. That whatever kind of eyesight they had as humans, it would be automatically corrected..."

"There was an incident. I took some damage to my eyes..."

"But don't you heal...?"

Alex scoffed, a hint of bitterness touching the edges of her voice, "Normally. But not from prolonged exposure to the sun. It will scar if it hits you enough to injure but not enough to kill you."

"How did it happen?"

The vampire's eyes skirted off towards the horizon, "Next question..." she said, so softly that Piper almost wasn't sure she'd heard her correctly.

They were silent for a long moment. They were high enough up and the day was clear enough that they could actually see the towers of Safe Zone 1 along the horizon.

Piper frowned, "Why don't you fight them?"

Alex started slightly, drawn out of whatever place Piper's last question taken her to, "What?"

"Why don't you fight the government? Get them to let everyone in? There's more than enough room..."

"It's just not a priority kid. I mean we'd love to but we've got enough to contend with out here and not nearly enough people to be effective."

"The vampires don't have nukes or something?"

"We've got heavy weapons but the Council would rather not go scorched earth on the zones. They're full of people like you. Who don't know anything about what's really going on. If we attacked, we'd only be proving the Government's lies about everyone on the Outside being vicious and violent and wanting what the Government has."

"It's not right... what they've done..."

Alex sighed, "I know it's not kid. But when you've lived as long as me, you learn that governments seldom do what's exactly right..." she frowned at the half dozen stray Infected wandering aimlessly in front of the fence, "And to be entirely honest, not everyone out here is someone you'd want to be locked behind 150 foot walls with..."

"They're all humans..."

Alex sighed, "Look, kid... I like you. You're making a lot of progress and you seem to really... get a lot of things in a way most Exies don't.. but you haven't been out on patrol. You haven't really seen what it's really like out there. You haven't ever encountered a Scavenger Gang... or a Lone Feral."

"But..."

"No buts, Piper. Take my word for it. Some people aren't worth the trying to save. Some people are barely better than the Infected... hell, some of them are even _worse_ than the Infected... at least the Infected are just brainless undead. The Scavengers are rabid dogs who know exactly what they're doing..." her voice was harsh, practically spitting out the last.. she took a deep breath, trying to calm herself, looking back over at the blonde, "Sorry... I've just lost more than few friends to 'people' like that..."

"Sorry... I didn't mean to..."

"Don't apologize. You didn't know," Alex sighed, "I only hope you never have to run into those bastards." Although even as she said it, she knew it was unavoidable... If Piper survived long enough, patrolled long enough, she would eventually encounter a Gang... the thought made Alex sick to her stomach... she could only hope she was by the girl's side when it happened...

* * *

While Alex was perfectly content to answer Piper's neverending stream of questions, very few others had the patience. Piper suffered from the automatic handicap of being an freshly squeezed orange, a relatively new Exile. People usually avoided Exiles like the plague at least until their probationary period was over, and sometimes beyond. The life they lived was a harsh one and no one liked getting too attached to anyone they might very quickly lose (there were way too many people to lose as it was).

(Exiles were also mocked for their inexperience or given shit for the fact that they'd lived for so long in the comfort of a Zone but that particular brand of hazing hadn't happened much to Piper. Alex's presence was enough to keep most mouths clamped shut. The one time someone had tried, Gloria's skinny wolves Flaca and Maritza jeering at Piper one time at dinner, Alex had ripped them a new one and given them the kind of look that might actually be able to kill. After that no one even talked behind the blonde's back)

But Piper was doubly cursed, at least in the eyes of most of the camp residents, by her tendency to either ask questions of or ramble endlessly to people who came within her orbit, either incidentally or because they didn't mind being around Exiles. Her bunkmate, Tasha, didn't mind as much because they talked about books, but aside from her only Nicky and Alex hung around her regularly.

Nicky hovered around at first because Alex was her best friend and her CO and she liked her company and Piper just happened to be around her all the time. But eventually, the scruffy werewolf became fond of the precise, rambling Exile. As she once told Alex, the blonde tickled her, and as far as Nicky was concerned, there were few enough amusing things in the world not to appreciate Piper.

Piper was pleased to have someone aside from Alex to question. After a month or so she was running out of questions for the vampire and would instead spend meal times listening as Nicky waxed lyrical in her inimitable manner.

"So you actually, physically turn into a wolf?" Piper was asking one day as she shoveled reheated beef stroganoff mush into her mouth with the enthusiasm of someone who was engaging in physical activity all day.

"Yeah, once a month. Like having female troubles except your whole body gets ripped a part and turned into a slavering dog."

"And you got bit?"

"Yeah. Back when I was in my early 20s. I was going through a... rough patch at the time. Not hanging around with the nicest crowd. One of my... associates turned out to owe a debt to a dealer who turned out to be a wolf. Guy came to collect, Joe didn't have the money... and the guy lost his temper. A little..."

"And you don't age either?"

"Oh I do. I'm not a paragon of immortal elegance like Vause here. I age, just slower than most humans. My tissue doesn't deteriorate at the same rate as a normal human's or some such bullshit."

"And you can just... go back and forth at will?"

"I only _have_ to be during the night of the full moon and the day before and after it. The imperative is too strong then. No way to resist it," she waved a hand vaguely, "Whole thing waxes and wanes with the moon. Night of the new moon, I'm at my weakest physically, but not nearly as prepared to give in to my urges."

"And they just... let you wander around camp?"

"When I'm a wolf? Nah. Those three days, all of us go out and run. When we're wolves, the Infected aren't near so interested in us, though we still have to be careful. We retain a lot of our awareness, so we can be careful."

"Don't let her lie and tell you she doesn't enjoy it most of the time"

"I'm in touch with my inner beast," Nicky grinned, "Plus I always liked my steak rare..." she waggled her eyebrows, "Like a lotta things pink and juicy actually..."

Piper furrowed her brows at Nicky's bold vulgarity. Alex rolled her eyes, "Nice, Nick. Classy..."

Nicky raised an eyebrow at Alex, "really, Vause? _Classy_? Any other night you'd be..."

Alex gave her a long hard look. Nicky went quiet, the grin remaining on her face, a thoughtful look in her eye as she turned back to Piper, who had seemingly barely noticed the short exchange and was already opening her mouth to ask another question.

* * *

When Alex left Piper at her tent that night and turned back towards her own quarters, she could feel the blonde's blue eyes on her. Alex was always extremely aware of her surroundings, it was part of being what she was. All her senses were heightened, and it created an almost uncanny sixth sense, invaluable for someone who always had to be wary of who and what was around them. Usually it applied equally to everything around her, but in the six weeks since she had begun spending every waking hour with Piper, it was as though the blonde had become some sort of beacon to her.

The more time Alex spent around her, the more she saw of her stubborn determination, her willingness to do whatever task was put in front of her, her constant need for knowledge, her intelligence and cleverness, the more prominent Piper became.

She was always aware of where the blonde was (her senses were sharp enough that, if she concentrated or knew someone's scent well enough she could pick them out, even in a camp where 70 other people lived and worked), even of how she was feeling (vampires were especially skilled at reading pheromones... no surprise)...

At first she'd tried to tell herself it was just because Piper was her responsibility, that she was just doing her job by knowing where she was and what she was doing, but she'd never been good at lying to herself.

Alex knew what it meant when she became this aware of someone. She knew because it had only happened twice before. She had feelings for Piper... which was troubling on more than one level. She couldn't gauge whether Piper was even interested. The girl was clearly fascinated with her, seemingly almost as aware of Alex as Alex was of her, but that could mean anything. Humans were always fascinated with vampires for one reason or another (though the lingering looks Alex often caught the blonde giving her would seem to suggest something more)

But more than that, Piper was human and...

"Humans are trouble, Vause... you know it as well as I do."

Alex looked up, frowning. She had gotten so absorbed in her own thoughts she hadn't been keeping track of where she was at. She was all the way back to her own tent, which she shared with Nicky and the rest of her unit. The shaggy wolf had been sprawled lazily on one of the crates arranged outside the tent that served as makeshift seats. She was smoking a cigarette and seemed to have been waiting for the vampire's return.

"The fuck are you talking about Nicky?" muttered Alex, frowning at her, although she was well aware that Nicky knew her better than about anyone else in the world.

"Blondie there..." she jerked her head vaguely in the direction of Piper's tent, "you been working the tall ass vampire charm on her..."

"I haven't been working anything on her," growled Alex, irritably, crossing her arms over her chest. She considered pushing past Nicky into the tent, but knew the wolf would just follow her and persist in talking about it.

"It's fine to fight by em and even be friends with em," Nicky continued, as though Alex had agreed with her, "I mean I like Washington and her crew as much as anyone but i wouldn't fuck around with any of them."

Alex made a frustrated sound, "I'm not going to fuck around with her. She's not interested."

"Really? You think so? Cause I thought you had eyes."

"You know I have a vision..."

"Vause, you may not have eagle vision like the rest of the bloodsuckers..." Nicky rolled her own eyes, "but you know that's not what I'm talking about. She follows you around like a puppy..."

"I follow _her_ around. Because I'm supposed to. Because I'm her fucking babysitter."

" _Probationary supervisor_ ," Nicky said, mimicking Red's voice, "And that's not what I mean. You're her ExieSitter for what? 14 hours a day maybe? But she's around you all the time. And she looks at you like the sun is shining out of your pale ass."

"If the sun was shining anywhere near my ass I'm pretty sure I would be crispy as the outside of a marshmallow."

"Oooo deflecting with humor. Never heard of that one before."

Alex rolled her eyes. "You fuck around with humans all the time. All the girls think your fucking shaggy dog act is adorable."

Nicky grinned and shrugged. "But I don't fall in LOVE with em. And they know the score from minute one."

"Whoa. Hold up," Alex snapped, "I haven't even admitted what you're saying is anything more than your wishful thinking. When did the fucking L word come into it?"

Now Nicky was really grinning, "Which one? Cause there are a few that apply..."

"Fuck off Nick. How'd we go from 'she follows me around' to 'I'm gonna fall for her?"

"I've seen how you look at her too, Vause."

Alex's jaw tightened, "I don't do love."

"Just cause you never have don't mean you never will."

"You don't."

"That's cause I'm a heartless bitch with mommy issues..." Nicky tilted her head, examining Alex as the vampire scuffed the toe of her boot through the dirt on the ground and refused to meet her all too perceptive brown gaze, "I'm not gonna say I'm not surprised. I mean, I never thought I'd see you look at anyone like that, but first time for everything..."

Alex finally raised her eyes to meet Nicky's. She said nothing, but whatever Nicky saw there was enough to make her half shrug, taking the last long pull on her cigarette before crushing it out and putting it in her pocket for disposal later. She hauled herself up off the crate, "See ya tomorrow, Vause," she said, nodding amiably before disappearing back into the barracks.

After the door to the barracks closed behind her, Alex sat heavily down on the crate and ran a hand through her hair, staring blankly up at the half moon in the sky. Alex had never been in love before. She'd been turned at young age, had had to learn so much on her own before she'd managed to find Red and the others, who had taught her how to handle herself. There hadn't been time for love, hadn't been time for much of anything aside from learning to manage her urges (a process that had involved more than a little tragedy, more than a little trial and error).

And as much as she tried to deny it to Nicky, she knew there was _something_ between she and Piper. But she was right. Humans were trouble. And love was best avoided...

* * *

But as much as she tried to deny it, to tell herself it was best if she never got involved, Piper was always there. Alex wondered when the girl's curiosity, her fascination would finally boil over into action. She almost hoped that it wouldn't. After her conversation with Nicky, she tried to pull back, to become more aloof, stop the subtle (and not so subtle) flirting that seemed to highlight any of their conversations these days.

It lasted about a day and a half before Piper said something about it. They were in the armory alone, putting away the weapons they had just been using out on the makeshift range where Piper was practicing her marksmanship (although she was taking to everything quickly, she wasn't even close to an expert marksman; she was much better with her fists to be honest).

Alex had turned to lock the gate that led to where the rifles were stored and when she turned back, Piper was a foot away. Alex had known she would be there, of course, but couldn't have accounted for look in her eye. She didn't have to be a mind reader to know what it meant.

"Piper, what...?"

"What's wrong Alex?"

Alex frowned, "What?"

"you've been weird the last couple days... why?"

"Piper…"

"You like me."

"Of course I like you, dumbass," Alex said fondly, shaking her head.

"I like you too... a lot."

"i know you do, kid. But it can't ever be anything more than that."

"Why not? I've read the regs. There's no rule against it... not even between vampires and humans..."

"No. No there isn't. But... that's not the point. It's... we're... impractical…"

"You make me sound like an inconvenience…"

Alex shook her head, "No you're not. You couldn't ever be. It's just that... this sort of thing… it never works out. I've seen it before. And it fucking hurts. Badly."

"I wouldn't hurt you…"

"You wouldn't hurt me on purpose. But the plain fact is I'm never going to age. Ever. You're going to get old… you're going to _die_ , and I'm not."

"Yeah but in the meantime…" she raised an eyebrow suggestively. Somehow she'd managed to get closer than she was before, almost into Alex's personal space.

"Piper don't make light of this…"

"I'm not… I wouldn't. And I don't even... I don't even know if it would ever _be_ anything, but you like me and I really like you and... what's the harm in exploring that?"

"You're not the one who's gonna get left."

"You'd give up years of happiness for…"

"And that's another thing. Let's stop pretending we're both even going to last that long."

"You're 100 years old."

"That doesn't mean much in this world. I've seen 500 year old vampires bitten and die instantly or, worse, turn into..." she shuddered, not wanting to think of it, "It's not pretty and I don't care how much 40 pound armor I wear, it could happen. Hell, if I accidentally get too much sun I'm dead. If I go without food for more than a couple of weeks, I'll start to go nuts. Not to mention I might try to eat you... and not in a good way..."

"Alex... I don't care about any that," Piper was close now... very close. It wasn't that she needed to be close for Alex to smell her, but the closer she got the more overwhelming it was, the power of it.

"Well you _should_..."

"I _don't_... and I don't think you do either..."

"One of us has to..."

Piper leaned forward so fucking close, "just let go..." she breathed.

Before either of them could close the gap, they heard the heavy outer door lock disengaging. Someone else was coming in. Alex shook her head once sharply, recovering the restraint that she'd been about to toss aside and took a quick step to the left, striding forward, taking long deep breaths. She reached the door just as it opened, revealing Maria Ruiz, one of Mendoza's wolves who threw her a hard look before pushing past her into the armory. Alex stepped out and held the door open for Piper, who brushed past her. Their eyes met, and the look there told Alex this was far from over.

* * *

They barely spoke fro the rest of the day. They ate dinner in near silence as Nicky glanced from one to the other, also being uncharacteristically quiet. As they were going from dinner back towards Piper's quarters (Piper wondering what she could say to Alex once they got there that would convince her to get past her objections), Poussey Washington called out from behind them, "Hey, Chapman!" she said, "Miss Claudette wants to see you."

Piper glanced at Alex, but Alex just gave her a little half shrug. evidently she wasn't sure what it was about either. Piper nodded, "Okay. Thanks." Then she and Alex changed course back towards the command tent. Washington gave a half wave and kept on towards the mess tent and her own meal.

When they got to the tent, they found Claudette, her other squad leader, Watson, at her side, both leaning over the large table in the center of the room that held the huge map of the camp and the surrounding area (the walled expanse of Safe Zone 1 some 20 miles distant). They looked up as Alex and Piper approached. Watson narrowed her eyes, her jaw tightening as it always did when she was around a vampire. No one had given Piper the details, but she gathered that Watson had had a bad experience with a vampire or two in the past and didn't trust them. She was always on best behavior, knowing the peace had to be kept because the vampires and (more importantly their Council) were vital to the human's survival, but her thoughts might as well have been written on her forehead.

Claudette glanced at her, finishing, "Tomorrow 0600. You and Mendoza's people?"

watson nodded curtly, "Yeah. I got it."

"All right, dismissed."

Watson gave Alex a final glare (earning a bemused eyebrow raise and sardonic half grin from the vampire herself... Piper had found very quickly that anti-vampire sentiment barely phased her), then left the tent, giving her a wide berth. Piper stood up a little straighter. There were a lot of matters where people didn't observe strict military discipline (few of them, after all, had started off as soldiers), but chain of command wasn't one of them. Claudette, Red and Gloria had all earned their positions and were all held with respect by everyone in camp.

"You wanted to see me, Miss Claudette?"

"Yes Chapman," said Claudette, gesturing her closer to the map, "You've been making a lot of progress, more than is usually to be expected from a fresh Exile after such a short period of time. Everyone is reporting good things."

"Well, I've had a lot of help," Piper said, allowing a short glance at Alex, who was standing next to her with that complete stillness that Piper had found so unnerving at first, but now found strangely comforting (like a lot of things about Alex).

"Still," Claudette said, "even so... you're doing well. Not perfect yet of course, but very well. Well enough that I think you can go on patrol..."

"What?" asked Alex, the word sharp. Claudette frowned at her, not appreciating the interruption, "It's usually at least three months before..."

"Yes... it is... but Chapman has done well. Your own reports..."

"I know that, Commander, but..."

Piper frowned, turning towards Alex, her temper activating, "You think I'm not ready? You told me I was..."

"I told you you were a fast learner... that you're making progress," Alex said, mouth turned down in a dismayed frown, eyes moving from Claudette to Piper, "Patrol is an entirely different thing... doing well in the camp, in a controlled environment... that's good... but the Outside..."

"It's a supply pickup. Easy."

"From one of the usual drop points?" asked Alex, looking at Claudette, who didn't look thrilled at the interruption, but seemed willing to let it pass. Alex was almost as respected around camp as the commanders. People knew she was good, so they gave her some latitude.

"No. But it's close."

"A tip off?"

"yes."

Alex frowned, "From someone we trust?"

"Mendez. He says a SZ supply ship was downed about five klicks from here. Says that he and his people managed to scrounge some items from it. Valuable items. Ammo. Food."

"Mendez? I don't trust that son of a..."

"His information almost always proves good. And you know we need the supplies."

Alex sighed. They really did. Half the monthly shipment of rations from the last Council supply drop had been lost when the drone dropping them had gone awry and set them down in the middle of a lake. There wouldn't be another drop for nearly a month. It was why Alex had been out scavenging when she'd found Piper. They needed all the supplies they could get right now...

"It should be easy. You'll go with Washington's unit, they're at full strength right now so there'll be plenty of people around to watch your back."

Alex still didn't look pleased. Piper was still mildly annoyed that Alex might not think she was capable. "I won't let you down." She said, firmly.

"And of course, Vause will accompany you as well."

"Yeah," said Alex, "especially with Mendez around."

Claudette frowned at her, "Mendez is an ally."

"As long as we pay him more than anyone else he is," Alex muttered darkly.

"Tomorrow morning. 0800. Briefing is 0700."

"Okay."

* * *

Piper barely got any sleep. It seemed like she had hardly closed her eyes when Washington was prodding her awake, "Let's go Chapman. It's time..."

She pulled herself out of her bunk. All around her, the seven human members of Washington's squad were pulling on their fatigues. Black Cindy, never serious, was cracking jokes loudly, slapping everyone else on the back. She slung an arm around Piper's shoulders, "Remember everyone, we got a nice white lady with us today, we got to take care of her... get her out to her organic groceries in one piece... make sure she get the locally sourced free range eggs this time..."

Piper half smiled. She had gotten more used to Cindy's constant stream of jokes over the past few weeks. She could tell they didn't mean any harm by it, but she was so full of nerves, she couldn't quite participate. Taystee was putting on her rich white lady voice, much to everyone's amusement, "Well, we can't have that! The last time I bought chicken that wasn't raised cage free I got _the_ most dreadful case of the shits..."

By this time, it everyone was dressed. They walked in a loose line to the armory, where they met the vampire and werewolf members of their squad. Every squad had a mix of vampires, werewolves and normals. It was meant to decrease unease, and for the most part it worked. Today, in addition to the two wolves and two vampires that were normally attached the squad, Alex was there as well. As usual, her eyes immediately snapped to Piper when she walked into the room. Piper met them and nodded. Alex nodded back and went back to the task at hand. The tension from the day before still lingered, but this wasn't the time to push things.

She was directed to a locker, where there was a set of body armor waiting for her. It was light and flexible and meant to buy time if they got caught in a bad situation. She pulled it on and then pulled on the utility belt and holster, fully stocked. The wolves were wearing nothing but their fatigues and a belt with a pistol on it. If they got attacked, they'd use their natural talents. The vampires were in the heavy full coverage armor she'd seen Alex in before, meant to protect from the sun.

As soon as everyone was suited up, Washington led them all to the briefing room. They were given a quick rundown of the mission by Claudette and then they all marched to the front gate where they walked out into the rising sun, Piper feeling both apprehension and anticipation at the thought of her first patrol...

* * *

Mendez had told them to meet his people in one of their drop points about two kilometers away from the camp. Alex disliked it from the second she laid eyes on it. She hated that they were trusting Mendez, that his past good information afforded him this kind of trust. No one had run recon on this place. It had only one clear exit point, the way they were going in. On either side of them was heavy overgrowth, and directly ahead was a dropoff. Alex could hear the slavering of Infected at the bottom of the dropoff, which was perhaps 20 feet below from what she could tell.

There were four men standing near the edge of the dropoff when they walked into the clearing, Washington halting the fourteen people in her unit. They all spread out into a loose defensive formation as she and Taystee took a few steps forward and stopped about six feet from the four men. "You Lincoln? Mendez sent us... said you had supplies... for us..."

The leader of the rag tag group was a tall man with thick hair and beard both brown shot through with gray holding a large dirty Harry style .44 magnum. He was wearing what looked like the tattered remnants of a uniform of some sort. Not army. Maybe police. Underneath all that dirt and hair he might once have bee handsome. His piercing blue eyes stared at them intently.

Behind him on his right was a skinny man with a thin face that could only be described as rat like. He had a mop of stringy, dirty hair that hung in a scraggly curtain over his eyes and what looked like a prepubescent boy's idea of facial hair, spotty pube-like goatee and pencil mustache. His eyes were brown and squinting dumbly from behind heavy eyelids. It was topped off by a large mole on his right cheek that looked like it was living thing. He wore a pair of battered jeans and motorcycle boots. No shirt, just a leather vest. He has a crossbow slung over his shoulder.

The other members of the group were just as dirt caked and feral looking... and as they stood there more of them appeared, slowly emerging from the brush around them as Alex realized with a sinking feeling in her guy that they'd been lured into a trap. Fuckin Mendez...

And of course this was Piper's first goddamn patrol. Supposed to be a goddamn milk run. Easy as fuck. Just go get some supplies. No heavy equipment.

"Well well look who's on r'teeetory, Dickie," said the leader in a barely comprehensible mush mouthed mutter, ignoring Poussey's inquiry.

"Mmmmrrhgh," said the skinny man with the crossbow.

"We aren't trespassing," said Poussey, frowning, her hand on her pistol. The rest of the squad had tensed when the rest of the other group had started emerged. There were at least a dozen of them, almost matching the squad's numbers, all of them armed somehow.

"Mmm, not fr'm where wur' standin'..." muttered the leader, "where wur' standin' looks like y'r intrudin'... try'n to take what's arr's... can't let'cha do' 'at..."

"look... there's obviously been some sort of misunderstand..."

Before Poussey could finish speaking, a shot rang out from one of the men on the side. the bullet hit Poussey in the midsection and she cried out, going down in a heap. In an instant, the clearing was a whirlwind of activity.

The squad was well trained, disciplined and better armed, but their opponents were Scavengers, thin and hungry and barely human anymore, fast and vicious. There were no guarantees about who would come out on top.

Taystee grabbed Poussey, gritting her teeth and crying out a string of profanities, by her collar and dragged her back towards the loose defensive circle the squad had formed, guns drawn and taking shots at the Scavengers as they converged.

With Poussey down and Taystee concentrating on stabilizing and protecting her, Alex found herself in charge by default. She turned to the wolves in the squad, "Get that fucker!" she snapped at them gesturing at the leader as he took a shot at Black Cindy, the bullet slamming into her shoulder. The wolves changed instantly and ran at the leader, dodging projectiles and flying bodies with uncanny speed, leaping on the leader, who cried out, gun flying out of his hand.

Alex turned to assess the rest of the situation and her eyes found Piper just as the stringy haired crossbowman (the leader had called him Dickie) tackled her. He pulled back his fist and punched Piper in the face. Piper cried out but gritted her teeth and punched him back, hard. It was a good punch, but the stringy little man was obviously tougher than they would've thought. There was no conscious thought involved as Alex abandoned her position and charged towards them, a growl that even she might not have entirely recognized tearing itself from deep in her chest.

Alex's boot connected hard with Dickie's ribs causing an audible crack. He went rolling off of Piper with a low grunt, rolling twice but somehow ending up scrambled to his feet up in a crouch his crossbow at the ready.

He aimed and fired at Alex. She took a half step to the side faster than the eye could follow her hand snapping up to pluck the bolt out of the air as it tried to get past her. He racked and fired again, quick as a whip, but the second bolt suffered the same fate.

As soon as both bolts were in her hands she hurled them back at him without breaking stride. One of them tore into the man's gut, slicing through the meat of his torso, lodging in his stomach the other tearing a chunk out of his neck.

He ignored both, a feral growl of his own tearing from his throat. He went to pull another bolt from the holster at his hip, but before he could, Alex was on him, knocking him over and putting her knee into his balls with all her weight behind it. Her right fist gripped the shaft of the arrow she'd put in his gut and ripped it out of his stomach. It was a nasty homemade thing designed to hurt much more coming out than going in and it did its work, essentially tearing his stomach open, blood spattering Alex's fatigues.

Despite a low pitched groan of pain and tears of pain running from beneath his heavily lidded eyes, cutting tracks through the caked on dirt and sweat on his face, (not to mention the blood flowing freely from the wound in his neck, soaking the ground beneath them) he thrashed hard below her, his right hand managing to pull a bolt his holster and trying to drive it into her throat even has her right fist pounded into his face, likely shattering his eye socket

She grabbed his right wrist with her left hand, twisting hard until she heard a snap and it dropped from his hand. Still he was struggling his free left hand, knocking it into her ribs with surprising strength. She grabbed that one too and twisted, cracking it hard before springing to her feet and pulling him up by his shattered wrists and dragging him towards the dropoff, hollering and swearing the whole way.

She got to the edge and looked down. There were about a dozen infected wandering aimlessly at the bottom of the dropoff.

She shifted her grip, letting go of one of his wrists and grabbing him by the neck, her grip pressing hard into the wound there. He glared at her, "Wha? no justuce?

Her eyes flashed, "Not for you."

"You kill me, my folk'll riot... they'll kill yuh..."

"They can try..." she snarled.

And then she dropped him. He fell all twenty feet and landed on his back with a thud.

The Infected at the bottom descended on him instantly, pulling at his already exposed guts, sinking their teeth into the wound on his neck. She waited until his high pitched screams faded off before turning away, back towards the fight...

The action was fading off, the others in the group making easy work once the leader (currently lying in a heap, his throat ripped out, his eyes wide and staring) and Dickie were gone.

She scoffed, thinking back on Dickie's last words, "Yeah. Big fuckin' riot."

Her eyes found Piper, who was kneeling next to Cindy, pressing a bandage to her shoulder, but her eyes were on Alex. Alex was half afraid to find revulsion there (and considering what she'd done to Dickie, she wasn't sure she could blame her), but instead the look the blonde was giving her was that same intense gaze she'd been wearing in the armory the day before... the look that told Alex she was well and truly fucked.

* * *

By the time they got back and were all properly debriefed and cleared by medical, it was nearly lights out. Most of the Scavengers were dead, with the last few having retreated when they saw the way things were going, but they'd managed to inflict a few casualties.

Washington was still alive and would probably be all right if they could get her back to camp in time. Half the rest of the squad had various injuries, a couple bad enough they couldn't walk. They'd called for evac and the truck had come to take them back to camp.

Once everyone was cleared, they'd all eaten a quick meal before retreating back to their tents.

Alex's own squad, led by Nicky, was out on a long recon mission and wouldn't be back for another day, so she had the whole barracks to herself. As squad leader, she had her own small room. She sat on her bunk and stared at the door, waiting. It had gotten so bad that she could sense Piper's exact position within the camp, but even if she couldn't, she knew what was coming was inevitable...

She didn't have to wait long. Fifteen minutes after she sat down, the door the barracks opened, and then Piper was standing in the doorway to her quarters. Alex stood up. They stayed that way for a long moment before Piper took two steps forward. "Alex..." she said softly.

"Piper..." Alex responded, "Are you sure... are you positive this is what you want?"

"yes..."

That was all Alex needed to hear. She knew this was probably a mistake, a bad one that could only end with her heart broken, but right now, at this moment, she couldn't find it in herself to care. With one swift sharp movement that Piper could barely even track, she shifted them both and suddenly Piper was perched on the end of Alex's bunk, leaning back on her hands. The vampire's arms were braced on either side of the blonde's fatigue clad legs as she leaned into Piper's personal space. Piper felt as though every nerve ending was simmering, her skin hypersensitive. It was like something inside Alex was _calling_ to her. Like her entire being wanted nothing more than to _respond_.

"This what we're about Piper... _seduction_..." the gray green eyes were boring into hers with an almost unbearable intensity, radiating _heat_... her normally husky voice pitched an octave lower, breathy, soft, persistent, dripping with desire, "it's practically what we were built for. Every predator has to be able to attract its prey... and ours is humans..."

She grinned wolfishly exposing her canines, which had sharpened to points in a way Piper had never seen before. Piper was wearing only her standard issue tank top. Alex leaned forward towards Piper's exposed collarbone and laid a kiss there, so soft Piper barely registered it, although it still sent a shiver through her entire body... but that was nothing compared what she felt when Alex ran the tips of her fangs along the edge of her collarbone.

The sensation was like nothing she'd ever felt before, like someone running a live wire over her skin, sending heat straight to her core, " _Fuck"_ she breathed and she felt Alex grin. How the fuck was she doing this? She'd barely even touched her, they hadn't even kissed...

As if reading her mind, Alex lifted her head and kissed her putting her arms around Piper and lowering her gently to the bed. When Piper slipped her tongue into Alex's mouth, she ran it along the tips of her canines and she felt Alex smile again.

Alex broke the kiss and drew back slightly so she could look Piper in the eye. The desire Piper had seen there earlier had only intensified, but there was something else there too... something that looked almost like insecurity. "Do you trust me?" she asked, her voice low.

"yes.." Piper breathed, and it was true. Somehow she knew instinctively, despite what Alex had said about predators and prey, that Alex would never hurt her.

A sort of relief flitted through Alex's eyes before being replaced by something else, something more primal... the look sent a shiver down Piper's spine. Alex leaned down again, kissing Piper again on the mouth before working her way slowly, torturously across her jawline... down to her neck...

Instinct said that Piper should've been terrified that a vampire was anywhere near her neck, but all she could do was shudder slightly in anticipation. She felt Alex trace a slow line over the pulse point of her neck with her tongue... and then there was a short sharp pain followed by the most intense feeling of pleasure she'd ever felt in her life... she felt it everywhere all at once and let go a noise that was somewhere between a moan and a gasp that would likely have embarrassed her if she'd had the ability to think in any sort of coherent way.

the only thought in her head at that moment was that she would never want or need anything other than this for as long as she lived...

* * *

Afterwards, Piper dropped off to sleep almost immediately, which wasn't unusual given that she'd lost about half a pint of blood (not that she hadn't enjoyed it immensely). Alex lay awake, staring at the ceiling. She felt completely energized, her awareness even more heightened than usual. She hadn't fed off an actual living breathing human for nearly a decade and she'd forgotten just how amazing it felt... especially when it was done like that.

However, her euphoria couldn't entirely drown out the voice in the back of her head. The one that was whispering to her what bad idea this was... the one that always took things to their worst possible conclusion. Normally she didn't overthink too much because she had faith in her ability to make things work... but this... she wasn't sure how she could deal with this. There was no way to fix the fact that Piper would die... no way that didn't involve turning her... and that was something Alex wouldn't even begin to allow herself to contemplate... _ever_..

* * *

 **A/N-** Well there's chapter 2. this one is going to be relatively short compared to my others, probably only three chapters at best... fair warning lol. Please let me know what you think, good bad or indifferent...


	3. we could be immortals

**A/N-** Well, first off I want to apologize for the delay. It couldn't really be helped (this one just had a hell of time getting written), but I try not to be the person who leaves you hanging with new chapters and stuff, so I'm sorry about that... Particular thanks (just, like, in perpetuity) to the Person Who Read This, for reading it approximately fifty million times until I got it right (or as right as it was going to get) and also for the chapter title. You are a champ and without you who knows whether I'd have gotten this done or not. Also thanks to reverse-swing once again for the poem (pronounced _powm_ ) at the beginning of the chapter, the title of the fic and general all around awesomeness and encouragement (i.e. prodding me to finish).

* * *

 **Chapter 3- we could be immortals**

 _There's a promise in your eyes_ _  
_ _An invisible thread that binds_ _  
_ _A blooming fear within your heart_ _  
_ _But remember this my love_ _  
_ _Black Roses never wilt_ _  
_ _In the pale moonlight_

* * *

Piper had expected something to change about the world around her or how it interacted with her after she had spent the night with Alex the first time. To somehow reflect just how different _she_ felt now. She wasn't as naive as some of the others seemed to think she was. She didn't expect the late summer sun to shine brighter or the burnt out grass to be any greener but she'd expected... _something_...

But all the changes were inside of her, the quickening of her pulse when she saw Alex's smile or heard her voice, the way her heart lifted or her stomach flipped when Alex touched her in even the most causal way.

The rest of the world just kept moving along steadily. There were still patrols to run, training sessions and drills to attend, duty rotations to adhere to, Infected to scrape away from the outer wall with well placed sniper fire. By day, Alex and Piper treated each other much the same way as they always had although it seemed as though everyone knew exactly what had happened as soon as it did. Even the shit she might have taken from her own squad (who she now considered her friends) was minimized by the fact that Poussey and Tasha had been injured.

And so life went on as it always had, and probably always would in the world they were forced to be a part of: boredom and routine accompanied by the all too frequent burst of sheer terror.

The obvious main difference in the routine was that, now instead of going back to her barracks at lights out she and Alex tried to find a private place to... broaden Piper's horizons.

Alex warned her the first time (as they lay tangled up in one another after Piper had woken up) that there was no point in trying to keep quiet or keep their activities concealed when two thirds of the beings in camp had enhanced senses.

 _" My people will be able to sense the connection before they've even smelled anything... the werewolves... well, they'll smell it on us."_

 _"Smell it? Eww..."_

 _"Heh, well, kid, some things can't be helped..."_

 _"I'm going to start bathing more..."_

 _"It's not like what we're doing is against the rules, Piper..."_

 _"No I mean... I know it's not against the rules, but... are people going to be... angry about it?"_

 _"It doesn't have to mean anything, at least in terms of how we conduct ourselves day to day when we're on duty. Some people won't_ _like_ _it necessarily, just because I'm me and you're human... but they won't give us any problems. They trust me. They know I'd never... get carried away."_

 _"Okay..."_

 _"And during duty hours I treat you just like I have been, no different than anyone else..."_

 _"I wouldn't want you to..."_

 _"Don't get defensive, Piper. I've never underestimated you, remember?"_

 _"Yeah... I know."_

 _"Once we're off duty, all bets are off."_

 _"Mmmm... good..."_

 _"Ha! you say that now..."_

 _"Seriously? You're acting like I wouldn't want to do what we just did... three times I might add... any time I can?"_

 _"Well, first off, you couldn't afford to lose that much blood..."_

 _"You don't have to... take the blood do you?"_

 _"No, but it's certainly better if I do..."_

 _"Hmmm,_ _yeah_ _it is..."_

 _"Heh... but secondly... remember what I was saying about enhanced senses? We'd have to literally get a thousand yards from camp before the wolves and most of the vampires wouldn't be able to hear you..."_

 _"Really? That far? But I thought people did this and..."_

 _"Oh they do. But not all of them are as... vocal as you..."_

 _"What? You mean the werewolves and vampires... heard that?"_

 _"No I'm pretty sure anyone with two ears heard that..."_

 _"Oh God..."_

 _"I didn't say I minded... hey, you're cute when you blush like that..."_

 _"Oh shut up..."_

 _"Anyway, as much as I'd like to do it all the time, we have to at least attempt to keep the peace, and keeping the peace means not disturbing everyone all the time."_

 _"So... we can do it..."_

 _"Probably every couple of days..."_

 _"Are you fucking serious!? Look, I don't know about you, but I'm only human and you're... I mean look at you!"_

 _"I know. Pretty irresistible... but everyone who's together does it like this. Out of respect for everyone else..."_

 _"There are other people together?"_

 _"Well yeah... in fact I think I can hear Bennett and Diaz doing..."_

 _"STOP!"_

 _"Anyway... that doesn't mean we still can't... be together, but... just not like that. Not all the time."_

 _"Ugh, fine..."_

And Alex had been right. Most people either pretended it wasn't happening (no one was quite willing to annoy Alex by openly objecting, and they weren't obnoxious enough to cause real problems anyway) or, if they were comfortable enough, gave them unending shit. Piper knew that some people didn't like it but it hardly affected her. There wasn't much that could quite bring her down from the high that was being with Alex.

In fact the only thing that could puncture the bubble she was floating around on at the moment was Alex herself. Most of the time, when they were alone together, Alex was as relaxed and content and _happy_ as Piper had seen her (and it wasn't just her personal bias... Nicky had taken to making exaggerated retching noises every time she encountered them off duty, muttering comments about how she never thought she'd see the day when the great Vause was a "fuckin' sap"). But every once in a while, Piper would catch Alex looking at her with a distinct air of melancholy, a shadow falling across her eyes, and she knew that the vampire was thinking again of Piper's mortality.

Piper had tried to broach the subject the first few times, but Alex had always shaken her head, smiled and seemingly by sheer force of will had made the melancholy disappear from her gold tinged green eyes. Piper let it go, but she knew that eventually they'd have to actually talk about it, because the longer she spent with Alex Vause, the more firmly she realized she had no interest in letting her go. Ever.

* * *

There was part of Alex that hoped (worried?) that nothing would change after she slept with Piper. That once whatever was between them had gone from fascination or infatuation or whatever it was on Piper's part to reality, that Piper would lose interest, that perhaps _actually_ being with someone who was technically dead would prove to be too overwhelming. However, it turned out that all the time spent in close proximity to her had gotten Piper used to her absolute stillness, the fact that she didn't breathe, that she was always perpetually cool to the touch, to the intensity of her nearly unblinking gaze. Those were the little things that usually worried humans enough to put them off getting too close, but they only seemed to intrigue Piper more.

And there was a part of Alex that worried (hoped?) that, despite the weight of the decision she had made, she herself would lose interest. That her own affection for the girl might have just been a sort of passing thing, something that she could get out of her system with a night of mutually beneficial incredibly pleasant fucking (it had been a _long_ time since she'd done anything of the sort with _anyone_ , let alone someone she actually felt an emotional connection to). But all it had proven was that her feelings were much deeper than she'd allowed herself to fully contemplate, even after what had happened with the Scavengers, even after she'd practically broken a man in two for trying to hurt the girl.

Despite her blithe assertion to Piper that no one would care, there had been some wariness amongst the others (particularly the humans), the natural worry that Alex had used her abilities to seduce Piper, but that notion was quickly dispelled by Piper herself who was happy to snap at anyone who wanted to claim such a thing.

In truth, if Alex had wanted to enthrall Piper (or any of the other humans in camp really), it wouldn't have taken much. Piper was more intelligent and stronger willed than many of the humans in camp, but Alex had been around for awhile and knew how to use her natural gifts (even if she didn't fully understand them, something about pheromones combined with the very intimate act of feeding off someone but not killing them). It would've been enough to rob anyone of all their free will. But Alex had never been interested in a mindless drone, and Piper was most certainly not that. Not even a little bit.

Piper seemed blithely content with the entire arrangement. During working hours, they were just as they had been, but off duty, Piper was always with her, and for once Alex (never one for clingy) didn't mind. But the closer she got to Alex, the more Alex allowed herself to care for the girl, the more she thought about all the things Piper was ignoring... all the things that Nicky (perhaps the only person in camp aside from the commanders brave enough to talk frankly to her) had been more than happy to remind her of...

 _Alex was sitting in the common room of her squad's barracks when Nicky walked in, reading a book, mentally preparing herself for Nicky barging in to interrogate her about what had happened. The rest of the squad had gone straight to the mess hall for lunch after debrief but Alex knew Nicky had sensed the change the second she walked into camp, could smell it from a mile away. Just like vampires were attuned to certain things, werewolves could ferret out specific things as well. Nicky had been with Alex for decades._

 _"Wow, Vause. You really aren't good at taking my advice."_

 _Alex said nothing, simply put down the book she was reading and leaned back in her chair, arms folded over her chest, sighing as she waited for the inevitable._

 _"Was it any good?"_

 _One eyebrow quirked up. Just about anyone else she'd have told to fuck off but Nicky knew her too well. It was pointless to deny anything and the shaggy dog wasn't intimidated by her in the least. "It's always good."_

 _"Hmmm... the old Vause ego... missed that," Nicky tossed her pack in the general direction of her bunk, pulled a chair from under the table and slumped in it, "And you've thought about this? About the implications."_

 _"I always think of the implications."_

 _"So... you ignored 'em then?"_

 _Alex grimaced but said nothing._

 _"She know what's up?"_

 _"I tried to talk to her about it Nicky. She wouldn't listen."_

 _"Oh, and you were suddenly incapable of fighting her off?"_

 _"Look, I know it's not a great idea, Nick.. I_ _know_ _that!"_

 _"I'm sensing a_ _but_ _here..."_

 _"But... there's something about her. She's different..."_

 _"Why because you..." Nicky air quoted, "...'_ _love her'_ _..."_

 _Alex glared, "Because she's_ _different_ _..."_

 _"All right, Vause, all right..." Nicky sighed, "I can't stop you doing anything, obviously... just, be careful, you know?"_

 _"Yeah. I know..."_

It was foolish, of course, to think things into the ground, to take them to their worst logical outcome... to think about a day when Piper would no longer be with her... it had been a very long time since she'd cared about someone this much and she really should have just been savoring things, enjoying the time they did have together. Normally, she was able to do that but sometimes... sometimes she would start to overthink, to take everything that was happening to its worst possible outcome. She had always tried to live in the moment, as they all did, but Piper was making her think of the future... of growing old and dying...

And it didn't necessarily help that Piper herself would periodically bring up aging or getting older, usually playing it off as her kidding, which would lead to a conversation of Alex turning her... which would inevitably devolve into an argument. One that always seemed to end in a stalemate, both of them storming off in opposite directions or just going silent, waiting until calm settled again before meeting again in the middle, not bringing it up again, but knowing it was always there, hovering in the background.

Alex knew that they couldn't go on like that forever. That Piper was persistent and eventually she would have tell the girl why she so steadfastly refused to turn her. Why she wouldn't even consider it... she wished she could put it off forever but life had never really been that accommodating to her.

* * *

Red walked into the command tent for the weekly meeting and nodded hello to the others. Claudette smiled. Mendoza returned a curt nod of her own. Red took her usual seat and took a sip from her coffee cup (lukewarm blood... Red hated drinking directly from a pack), opening up her notebook and glancing up at Claudette who was running things this month.

"Chapman's probation is up," Claudette said, pulling a piece of paper out of a file folder in front of her, "She's excelled at everything. She's got an 'A' rating from Vause..."

Mendoza grimaced, "Oh yeah, I know Vause thinks she's an A plus... we have to listen to it three times a fuckin' week..."

Red rolled her eyes, "Vause wouldn't rate her an A if she wasn't, _extracurricular activity_ or no..."

"Yeah yeah... I know she makes her toe the line when they're on duty," Mendoza sighed.

"You have a problem with them?"

"You know I ain't ever jumping for joy when one of you bloodsuckers goes fucking around with a human... but Chapman seems fine. She's infatuated with Vause's tall ass all on her own."

"It's been nearly three months," Claudette said, bemused, "You'd think you'd have gotten accustomed to it."

"Oh I'm accustomed," muttered Mendoza. " _Everyone's_ accustomed..."

Red waved a hand, impatient, "Unless you have an official objection then can we get on with business? We've got a camp to run..."

Mendoza said nothing, just took a gulp of her coffee.

Claudette continued, "I want to assign her to Washington's unit. She's been patrolling with them and bunking with them this whole time. She works well with them and Washington supports Vause's rating."

"Fine," Mendoza muttered.

Red nodded in agreement, "Perfect..." she made a note on the paper in front of her, "Means Vause can go back to her unit. They're about to shove a silver bullet up Nicky's ass..."

Mendoza snorted, "That girl wasn't meant for command."

"No," Red agreed, half smiling, "She's even more annoying than the rest of you."

"Fuck off," said Mendoza mildly, "She's done fine with them. She'll be happy to go back to being the resident smartass..."

As Claudette went to move to the next item on the list, Red laughed sudden, short and sharp. The other two looked at her, frowning. "What?" asked Claudette.

Red was still grinning, "I was just thinking... Vause may be the first person in the history of the camp to be unhappy that she doesn't have to babysit an exile anymore..."

* * *

The squad welcomed Piper by passing around a flask full of Poussey's almost decent moonshine, each of them taking just a big enough sip to get a taste and the slightest buzz because they were on day patrol duty that week and had to go to their briefing and gear up almost as soon as they got the news about her becoming a full fledged member of the team.

Piper was used to the pre-patrol routine by now: the way Tasha always recited a bad poem (usually cribbed from the lyrics of one of the songs on the stack of records she played on her quite literally ancient record player); the way Black Cindy went from person to person punching them on the arm just slightly too hard to really be joking; the way Maxwell just at back with the battered copy of some novel she was reading for the hundredth time, letting the rest of the squad's talk flow around her; the way Poussey went about her business with practiced professionalism but always had a slight grin on her face as her troops tried to lighten the mood.

But as they left the barracks, heading in two loose columns of five towards the armory, she was suddenly hit with the thought that this would be the first time she would ever go on a patrol with Alex by her side. That she would walk in to suit up and Alex wouldn't be there, pulling on her heavy black armor and cursing under her breath about the helmet she was forced to wear for day patrols.

Piper had known that, eventually, her probationary period was going to end, and she had a sense of immense pride that she'd learned so many things so quickly, that she'd proven that she could do anything they asked of her, that had earned the right to be one of them. However, it also meant that Alex would no longer be around her all the time. She'd gotten used to the vampire's presence, found it comforting and solid, even when she couldn't touch her... but there was some comfort in knowing that Alex would always know where she was even now...

Even though she'd prepared for it, there was still a pang in her chest when she walked into the armory and Alex wasn't there. She went to her locker, letting her mind drift as she geared up...

 _The night before, they'd been pulling a guard shift in one of the towers near the rear of the camp. Piper had looked over at Alex and said, "This is our last guard shift together..."_

 _Alex had half smiled, even though she'd continued to scan the horizon, "I know, Pipes," she said, quietly, allowing herself the use of Piper's first name while on duty because they were alone and their radios were keyed off. "Although I'm not going to miss being trapped in close quarters with you for six hours at a time without being able to touch you."_

 _Piper grinned back, "You could if you weren't always insisting on following the rules," she said this last with heavy sarcasm._

 _"Yeah I know... if only you'd met me in the 60's... I could've given two fucks for the rules back then..."_

 _Piper sighed, "I'm not looking forward to it you know..."_

 _"What? Being assigned to a squad? It'll be fine. You're better than half the soldiers in this camp at almost everything... And anyway they'll probably put you with Washington's squad. You know them..."_

 _"You know that's not what I mean..."_

 _"I know..." Alex sighed, turning to face Piper. Piper saw a brief, almost imperceptible look of concentration cross the vampire's face and knew she was taking stock of their surroundings, gauging where everyone near them was, what they were doing. Then she nodded to herself slightly and took a step forward, putting her arms around the blonde._

 _Piper was so surprised it took her a moment to relax into the embrace. Normally, Alex was almost frustratingly disciplined, determined not to step out of line or treat Piper any differently than any other solider in camp. They held each other for a long moment before Alex drew back slightly. Piper looked into her eyes, the eyes that had captured her attention all those months ago in the worst possible situation and had never let it go._

 _Alex leaned down and kissed her lightly, briefly on the lips, and Piper understood that this was all she could allow, although even that, the barest touch, was enough to send a jolt through her system, even after they'd been together for all these months. "I'll always be here for you... you know there's nothing that can truly separate us..."_

 _Piper had nodded, knowing that there most certainly was something that would eventually separate them, but aware this was not the right moment to bring it up. "I know..." Alex had kissed her once more then taken a swift step back and gone back to staring out the guard tower._

Piper half smiled at the memory as she cinched up the last of her armor and straightened up. She turned by instinct to Cindy, whose locker was next to hers, and they checked each other's armor to make it was secure. Cindy grinned at her, "You gonna be all right, without tall dark and broody to watch your back?"

"Oh, what you're not going to do it?" Piper asked. Three months ago she would've had no idea how to respond to Cindy's constant stream of good natured insults and jokes, but now she at least tried to give as good as she got.

"Course I am... can't have our token white girl gettin' tore up on her first patrol as a full fledged fuckin' squad member... "

They geared up, checked out their weapons and headed towards the gate. As they filed out of the gate and onto the road, heading north towards the sector they were patrolling today, Piper felt the weight of someone's gaze on her back. She glanced over her shoulder and saw Nicky and Alex in the central guard tower just to the right of the main gate.

Alex gave her the smallest of smiles and a wave. Beside her, Nicky rolled her eyes but grinned at Piper all the same. Piper nodded back an acknowledgment, then turned back to her squad. She felt Alex's eyes on her until they disappeared into the trees.

* * *

It didn't take Alex long to get back into the routine of running her squad. They were all heartily relieved to see her back again, including Nicky, who just wasn't built for long term command assignments. There were very few idle moments in her day to sit and think about how Piper wasn't around her... which didn't necessarily mean she didn't miss the girl's presence. They had gone from being around each other all the time, to occasionally not seeing each other for a day or two (sometimes due to schedule rotations not intersecting, sometimes because one of their squads had to go on overnight patrols, sometimes simply because being a squad commander, especially one who didn't sleep, was time consuming). Alex didn't like it, but it made the time they did have together seem even more precious, and it reinforced just how important they had become to each other... and it wasn't like seeing each other while they were on duty was always a blessing either.

Alex couldn't decide whether it was better or worse when Piper was on patrol with her. On the one hand, when Piper went out with Poussey's squad and Alex either stayed at camp or went with her own on a different mission, Alex had low key anxiety for her all the time. The vampire had gotten used to always being aware of Piper, even if it was just in the back of her head, on the periphery of her consciousness, and the loss of that when Piper was out of the range of even her enhanced senses, not so distracting that it affected her work, but like something was just slightly off balance in her head.

On the other hand, however, being on patrol with the blonde presented the opposite problem. She was hyper aware of Piper's movements, her heart rate, when her breathing went shallow, when her steps quickened. If she was in danger, Alex had to work to keep her mind on the matter at hand. The fact was they were all in danger every moment they were on patrol. The Infected were everywhere, the danger was all around them. Piper had been well trained and had survived enough and demonstrated enough skill to be trusted to take care of herself. Poussey was one of the best squad leaders in camp, her unit one of the most skilled (which was why they were chosen to accompany Alex's). Although death or injury was always a possibility, Piper was about as safe as she could be.

Alex always managed to keep on task, because she was a professional and she had to, but she never stopped being aware of her. This mission was too important to get sidetracked. There were some things that were more important than what she wanted.

* * *

"Have you ever?"

"Hmmm?" Alex glanced over at Piper, who was lying, fully clothed, in her arms. As much as Alex would've enjoyed lounging around naked as the day she was born, the circumstances weren't exactly ideal for it. No one really knew when they'd be called upon to run a mission... or in Alex's case, when Nicky might decide to barge into her quarters.

"Turned someone?"

Alex frowned, "Piper..."

"What?"

"We're not having this discussion again. I've already told you I'm not going to turn you..."

"I know," Piper said, sighing, "I know that, but... I'm just, curious..."

Alex sighed. The blonde was always curious... and normally she didn't mind that. Normally, she actually liked it, but there were some things that she kept hidden for a reason. Things that were too painful to talk about, even for someone like her, who had lived so long that nothing fazed them.

In the end it was Piper's expression, wide eyed, open, concerned, that tipped the scales. She wasn't asking out of morbid fascination or some desire to have something to use against her. Alex found that she trusted the girl implicitly, which was something she never thought she'd do again.

Another deep breath, "Once. I did it once," she said, her voice barely a whisper. Although it was something that haunted heroften, she had never really shared it with anyone else before (Red knew but only because she had been the one to find Alex right after it had happened and had seen everything) and she hardly knew how to put it into words.

"It was... not long after I'd been turned myself. I was trying to... _deal._ It wasn't easy. When you're first turned, it's so... confusing. Your heart doesn't beat. You don't have to breathe. You don't know your own strength... and the hunger. It's... all consuming. For the first few days after, I didn't _know_ anything else existed. It was just a blur of... red..."

Alex was looking at the ceiling of the tent, but her eyes were unfocused, far away, a century distant. She felt Piper take her hand as though she were trying to anchor her. The vampire plowed on, not wanting to stop because she wasn't entirely sure she would allow herself to start again. She hadn't exactly been _hiding_ from the memories of those early days, but accessing them was not something she relished.

"...the one who turned me... he... tried to make me into a disciple. I'm sure that's in one of Jefferson's books. Usually... the one who turns you has a special bond with you, you know? He can tell you to do shit and you sort of have an... inclination to do it. He led me through that first month. Taught me how to handle things, how to feed... I barely remember it, but I know... I know he told me to kill and I did it...

"After that first month though... I got a handle on things... began to realize what he was telling me to do was wrong... I'd like to say that it was my willpower, and maybe that was part of it, but I think mostly it was just because I didn't want to fuck him..."

Piper laughed at that, a sort of surprised snort. Alex allowed herself a short smirk, remembering quite vividly the look on Marcus's face when he realized that she was _actually_ walking out on him.

"A lot of our control depends on the ability to seduce, and seduction requires attraction," she glanced at Piper, eyes softening briefly, "as you know... but I wasn't the least bit attracted to him... for obvious reasons. To cement the whole connection, he wanted me to... fuck him. I told him that I wouldn't do it... that I was leaving... and he ... well he wasn't used to that. he tried to stop me so..." she trailed off, "...he wasn't that experienced himself, he'd only been a vampire for 30 years, otherwise he might've known better. Someone who's newly turned is stronger than someone who isn't. I... fought him to a standstill. He let me go... and I went back to my mother."

Alex faltered slightly over the words. Closing her eyes, feeling her dry tear ducts burning. "Fuck..." she muttered.

"Alex, you don't... you don't have to tell me if..."

"No. I want to... it's important that you know... I need you to _understand_ why."

"Okay..." Piper said softly, nodding.

"She... she took me back in without hesitation... she was so fucking happy to see me again. She thought I was dead... there'd been no body... so the cops told her I was probably a runaway. She never believed it. Knew I'd never leave her if... as long as... we were both alive...

"I told her what had happened, explained what I was, and she didn't blink an eye," a small, sad smile appeared, "said it meant I'd be cheaper to feed now... we were fuckin' poor, it's what had made me so easy to attack in the first place. My mom worked as a waitress at a diner and she took in washing and sewing when she wasn't at the restaurant. She knew everyone, was friends with everyone. Everyone... everyone loved her. One of her best friends was the butcher's wife. They... helped us out sometimes when they could afford to. They didn't ask questions when she started asking for... well, I kept fed. I had enough self control I could feed off people without killing them, but...I didn't want to be... like that..."

She sighed, "It was fine for awhile. I couldn't go out during the day, but I didn't have to sleep, which meant I could help mom with her work. Then, about four months after I got back, she got... sick. Cancer. She had no money for treatments and back then they wouldn't have done much good anyway. It was basically a death sentence. The doc gave her six weeks at best..." Alex turned to look at Piper, but the softness she found there, the profound sympathy (not pity... Alex was intensely grateful for that) made her turn away again... she didn't deserve it... and Piper would know why soon enough...

"She was all I had, Piper. My entire fucking life. Without her I was alone. I mean, I knew people, but I didn't _love_ anyone the way I did her. As she got worse and worse, I started.. I started to think that maybe there was a way I could keep her alive. I... had seen Marcus change people, during that month I was with him. It's... a delicate thing. If you've been around for awhile, done it a few times, it gets easier, but... the first time it's not easy. If one thing goes wrong, the balance is off, you kill the person rather than changing them..."

She stopped again. Piper said nothing this time, simply stayed where she was, clutching Alex's hand, burrowed into her side. Without even realizing it, Alex had been drawing her closer and closer with the arm wrapped around her shoulder. If it was painful or uncomfortable, Piper wasn't saying anything about it.

Alex closed her eyes again, "I went back and forth about it... wondered if she'd even want it. I talked with her about everything but I couldn't... ask her about it. I knew what she'd say. She'd say if there was any chance I might slip up, she wouldn't want me to do it. She wouldn't want me to live with the guilt... and then she got to be in too much pain to talk. She was just... in and out of consciousness, delirious... when it got to that point, a doctor who'd been a regular at the diner brought us some morphine... enough to 'ease her through her last days'...

"That's when I decided. I was going to do it. She was so good... so fucking good Piper, the best person I've ever known. It was fucking unfair that she should die while I just..." she shook her head, "...I gave her some morphine... so she wouldn't feel anything... and then... then I tried to do it. I tried to turn her... but something went wrong. I... I don't... I don't even know what it was... and she... she regained consciousness... and she was in terrible pain. The... substance that turns you... it's basically poison. If it doesn't kill you and turn you, it... hurts. she died... that night. I don't think she would've lasted much longer anyway... but she died in so much pain...

"I should've just let her go. I should've just given her the full dose of morphine and let her slip away but... I was selfish and I couldn't let go and..."

If she'd still been capable of it, she would've been weeping. As it was, she was drawing in sharp shallow breaths, sobbing without tears. She didn't need to breathe, but her body still remembered what it was to double over with grief. She felt Piper pull her closer. For once, the blonde didn't speak, and Alex was immensely grateful for it. She didn't need to hear words of comfort. She wasn't sure any of them would've worked at this point. She'd lived with this for nearly 100 years, and she understood every angle of it. She only needed Piper to understand why it meant she would never do it again. And by her comforting embrace and the silent tears Alex could feel against her neck, she knew that Piper did...

* * *

After that night, Piper hadn't brought up the subject of being turned again, and Alex had gone back to silently hoping that it wouldn't be something she'd ever really have to contemplate. Hope was something that had never been particularly kind to Alex, and she had grown used to never giving into it, but being with Piper had stirred the unfamiliar impulse within her, just as it had stirred so many things that she wasn't used to feeling.

The world was dangerous, but they were one of the best Resistance units in the Region, well trained and highly disciplined, their commanders tough and capable. It had been nearly nine months since they'd lost anyone altogether, although they'd suffered numerous injuries, some of them serious.

It was nearly a week after Alex had told Piper about her mother when Red called her into the command tent.

"Mendez. He's re-surfaced."

"What?" snarled Alex, her fangs involuntarily extending at the sudden burst of anger. They hadn't seen or heard from him since the incident with Dickie and his friends. Alex figured the little bastard had known that his betrayal would be obvious, that his name would go on the hit list they kept of smugglers who couldn't be trusted, of people who should be put down at the first opportunity. The Council had transmitted his details to every Unit in the region, so it was doubtful he'd be doing business here ever again., but it was evidently too much to hope that he'd stay away.

"No," Red said, grimacing, "He was spotted not far from here..."

"Smuggling?"

"No he knows he can't deal with any of us anymore, knows that all the other Units and Settlements in this area won't go near him. He's actually taken over what was left of that gang of Scavengers who tried to kill you."

"Christ," muttered Alex... she'd known Mendez was a slimy bastard, but he hadn't ever been a _Scavenger_. Scavengers were the lowest of the low. Men and women who had lost all their humanity, who were barely more than Infected themselves. At least Smugglers still pretended to have purpose, principles...

"Yes. He ambushed a unit from ARAC 12. Killed them all, took everything. Didn't do it pretty. Used the Infected against them..." Red gestured to the map of their Camp's Area of Operations and the ones surrounding it. "We think he's making his way back towards us, our territory."

"Fuck."

"We have to take care of him. Scavengers can't be allowed to operate here."

Alex sighed. Part of their mandate was to offer aid and assistance to their allied Smugglers, who lived in much less heavily fortified camps than they did, and to protect the scattered settlements, where those who didn't want to join the ARAC units huddled together. A guy like Mendez might not be able to take out a well protected ARAC camp, but he could sure as hell take out their friends.

"We're sending your unit and Washington's after him."

"That's not overkill?"

"Reports are he has at least that many with him. We ought to be sending more, but you know we can't spare any more than that. It'll strain us to send you," Red leaned forward, "This pig fucker has betrayed us, has become an animal. You do what you need to do to stop him ever hurting anyone again, yes?"

Alex nodded grimly. There were no prisoners out here, no courts, no arguments for mitigating circumstances. Mendez had fucked them over. Mendez had killed other humans with intent. All that was left was to find him and ensure he didn't do it to anyone else.

Red pointed towards the map again, "This was where he was last spotted. You'll leave tonight after sunset... we'll brief your squads in an hour."

* * *

They made it 30 minutes before the distress call came in. One of the smuggler's camps about 5 miles out was under attack from what appeared to be a group of Scavengers. The two squads were nearly done with preparations and they accelerated everything and headed out immediately.

With the trucks, it took them no more than 10 minutes to get to the camp. By the time they arrived, the outer wall, just sandbags and some barbed wire really had been breached. The defenses had been meant mostly for the Infected, not for other humans, and it didn't look like it had been difficult. There was smoke rising from inside the little camp, and they could hear gunshots and shouts.

The twenty yards between the woods they'd just driven out of and the front of the camp had concrete blocks covered in barbed placed at strategic intervals as another way to slow the Infected (whose limited problem solving skills meant obstacles of that sort were always effective in bunching them up and making them easier to dispose of, at least in smaller numbers). However, the blocks also meant that the trucks couldn't get any closer. The squads deployed, weapons at the ready, leaving their drivers in the reinforced troop carriers keeping watch on their backs with their rifles (each vehicle was heavily armored and locked up tight as soon as the squads deployed, the drivers' compartment equipped with open slots their rifles could fit through). Alex's squad went left, Washington's went right. Alex cast a glance at Piper and caught Piper doing the same. There wasn't time for anything else.

They were halfway to the camp's entrance when Nicky, the keenest nose in the squad, frowned and slowed up. Alex, sensing her hesitation, brought the whole squad to a halt and radioed to Washington, "Hold up, Washington. Nichols has something..."

Poussey's voice, "She sure? Gonzalez and Frank don't have anything here..." she said, referring to the wolves on her squad.

"I'll check..."

"Vause, there's some bad shit going on in there..." Poussey said, and Alex could hear the urgency in her voice.

"I know..." she turned to Nicky, "What is it Nichols..."

"This ain't right, Vause... it feels off... the smell is wrong..."

Alex stood up straighter, taking a deep breath. She smelled burning and blood and dirt and the scents of her squad and of Washington's, further off she could smell the people inside the little smuggler's camp, although she obviously couldn't separate friends from enemies. She could hear sounds from camp, indistinct, blended together, people shouting, yelling...

She turned to look at Nicky, frowning and preparing to signal them forward again, "Nichols, I don't..."

... before she could finish her sentence, she heard a strangled moan from behind them. Her head whipped back to look the way they had come... and she heard Morello, the driver of their squad's truck , call out a warning... and then at least three dozen Infected, a bona fide fucking pack, came crashing out of the woods behind them...

"Washington!" she called into the radio

"Yeah I see!" Poussey said.

The Infected were already between them and the trucks, and though they were slow and impeded by obstacles, this was not the place to fight them, they were closing in too fast. A pack could overwhelm even two dozen troops in short order, especially if they killed or turned a couple. The open field was the wrong place to make a stand.

"Make for the camp, fast!" Alex said. Poussey had the same idea. They headed for the camp, the troops bringing up the rear picking off the individual Infected with precision shots when they could. They were almost to the gate when a shot rang out and Nichols went down hard, the bullet slamming into her shoulder.

The bullet clearly wasn't silver because all it did was piss Nicky off. She swore loudly and immediately morphed, her wolf shaking off the wound quicker than her human form was capable of. She glared at the camp and snarled loudly at Alex. Alex knew Nicky well enough to understand what she meant. The bullet had come from the camp itself.

"Washington! Cover! Enemy fire coming from the camp!" even as she said it, more shots rang out. Another of her people was grazed before they all managed to find some cover.

"Well fuck!" Washington spat as they got their squad behind cover and began advancing more slowly, taking shots at the camp itself now, where Alex could now clearly see enemies concealed behind the sandbags and wire.

Why couldn't anything ever be fucking easy?

* * *

Later, when all was said and done, the post op investigation would find that they'd been duped by Mendez and his newly augmented group of renegade smugglers. They'd actually taken the camp the day before, quickly and quietly disposing of every single living person within it before proceeding to set a trap that the feral Scavengers that he'd taken on could never have come up with themselves.

They'd corralled Infected in twos and threes over the course of the day until they had a fair number and concealed them in the forest in an airtight cargo container they'd stolen from the ARAC camp they'd raided, thus making the fuckers impossible for even the wolves' enhanced senses to hear or smell immediately (given enough time to recon the area, they would've eventually sensed them, but they didn't believe they had that kind of time). As soon as Alex and Poussey's squads had arrived and were far enough away from the safety of their vehicles that they couldn't get back easily (but not close enough to the camp to sense that the shouts and yells coming from that direction were all fake), the container had been opened, and the Infected had made tracks for the warm flesh in front of them... which left the squads surrounded, Mendez's assholes on one side, Infected on the other.

Of course, none of that came up until later, and none of it made any fucking difference in the moment, as everything devolved into chaos. The squads made it to the camp and began engaging the ferals on the other side, who were too undisciplined to follow Mendez's orders to stay behind cover and began emerging to attack the squads.

The Infected converged on them as well (Mendez perhaps being a little too clever, forgetting that Infected would go after any live being they could find, not taking into account that they would attack his people as much as the ARAC troops), and suddenly the field became complete chaos as the ARAC troops fought the living and the dead alike.

The end result of the fight was never really in question. Mendez had surprised them, hoping to take out enough of them in the initial chaos, or hoping that they would panic with the Infected at their backs, but he underestimated both their training and his own troops' complete lack of discipline. But that didn't mean that any of it came easy.

The wolves morphed and began tearing into the nearest enemies they could find. Everyone else advanced into the camp and began fighting Mendez's men (his group was at least two dozen strong, though not nearly as well armed, armored or trained) with guns and knives and fists as the Infected flowed in behind them...

Alex focused her senses down to her immediate vicinity to avoid being overwhelmed with the sounds and smell of it. There was no longer any point to issuing commands, everyone was just trying to survive as best they could, to take out the enemy before the enemy, in whatever form, destroyed them instead..

One of her human troops was fighting off two Infected and had lost his rifle. Alex shot the two zombies off him and tossed him her pistol before turning back to find one of Mendez's goons, a tall, broad, wild eyed man caked in mud and blood with a smell so overwhelming it nearly knocked her over on its own, coming at her with a machete. Someone had shot him in the side and there was long gash in the right side of his forehead that was gushing blood down the side of his face, but he hardly seemed to notice. There was nothing but madness and the thrill of violence in his eyes.

The man's first swing was wild, but he was so deceptively quick that even with her unnatural speed, the blade still glanced off the body armor on her shoulder with surprising force. Even for a feral he was strong and fast. He reversed his swing almost instantly, trying to come back at her before she could recover, but she ducked that as well, having instantly adjusted for his speed and came in under his arm, driving her right fist into his ribs hard. She heard bones shattering, and the air rushing from his lungs in a wheeze, growling incoherent curses.

The blow was enough to make him drop his weapon, but even though he had doubled over with the force of it, and was in obvious pain he still hadn't gone down. Using his position to his advantage, he drove his legs forward, wrapped his arms around her midsection, and slammed the crown of his head into her midsection, tackling her hard and taking her to the ground. Her helmetless head hit the ground hard and for a split second she saw stars. The feral grabbed another knife from his belt and raised his arm to thrust it down at her. His speed and the fact that he was essentially kneeling on her arms meant that stopping the blow was going to be near impossible.

Alex was bracing herself to move her head as much as she could, try to mitigate the effect of the impact, when a growling blur of untidy light brown fur and snapping teeth came flying in, seemingly out of nowhere, slamming into the man's already injured left side and knocking him off her with such force that he didn't stop sliding for five feet. _Nicky..._ Alex sprang to her feet as soon as the man's weight was off her and looked over to make sure Nicky had things under control... but judging by the unhealthy gurgling noises he was making and the blood that was soaking the ground underneath him, the wolf was fine.

Alex turned and headed back into the teeth of the fight..

* * *

Piper's gun had run out of ammo within the first five minutes, which was fine because one of the few things she hadn't excelled at was marksmanship. The thing worked much better for her as a blunt object with a knife attached to the end of it. She was near the entrance to the camp, where all the Infected were most concentrated. The noise of the fight and smell of living flesh had attracted more than just the initial herd. She couldn't tell how many more, just that their numbers didn't seem to be diminishing at all.

She and one of the wolves, Flaca, had somehow ended up working as a pair, holding their particular patch of ground against the waves of undead assaulting them. Not many of Mendez's men had strayed this far towards the entrance of the camp after the initial burst of action, but given the sheer number of Infected, she and the wolf had more than enough to keep them occupied.

Flaca was normally attached to Gloria's squad, but one of Poussey's wolves had been injured in the last patrol. Normally they'd have gone out one short, but this mission had been too important, so they'd drawn a replacement. Poussey wasn't necessarily fond of the tall, skinny, extremely talkative girl, but she was one of Gloria's best and when push came to shove she could be relied upon to do what needed to be done.

The girl had stayed in her human form. Staying human could often be a more effective way for a wolf to deal with large groups of infected. Wolves were good at tearing out throats, which would do no good against a zombie. Better to stay upright and use her enhanced strength, reflexes and senses to fight them off with a weapon in hand.

Piper put her bayonet through the eye of one Infected, while elbowing one that was coming up behind her in the face, hard enough to drive what remained of its nose back up through its brain, which cleared out the ground in front of her at least temporarily. She turned just in time to see Flaca get grabbed from behind by an Infected that had gotten too close while the girl had been trying to take out the three in front of her.

Flaca morphed to get out of the grasp of the one that had bear hugged her, but one of the three in front of her grabbed hold of her leg. She turned and snapped at it, but she was surrounded now. Piper ran at them as the zombies began to overwhelm the struggling wolf. She smashed the first one in the head with the butt of her rifle with enough force that she heard bones crack. The zombie fell to the side, and she used the momentum from her swing to carry her forward, kicking one of the other three in the head while she put her bayonet through the eye of a third. Flaca had enough room to move that she sprang up and tackled the fourth to the ground, before setting her powerful jaw at either side of its head and biting down hard, cracking it like a nut.

The wolf grimaced and made an annoyed grunting whimper. None of them liked popping Infected like that. They knew it wouldn't transfer the infection like a bite would, but it tasted awful. Then she looked over at Piper and dipped her snout sharply, an acknowledgement. Piper nodded back... and then Flaca yelped loudly and shifted into a defensive stance, growling at something behind Piper.

Before Piper could even turn, she felt a set of teeth sink into her calf. She cried out and pivoted... the Infected she'd hit with her rifle butt had crawled up to her and grabbed her leg. Its face had been pulped by her blow, but evidently the cracking bones hadn't been enough to take out its brain... and now it was fucking attached to her leg.

Panic started to rise up in her throat... being bitten was a death sentence... but she pushed it back down. She couldn't dwell on this while there was still a fight raging around her. She brought the tip of her bayonet down into the top of the zombie's head hard, piercing its brain. Immediately she felt the excruciatingly painful pressure on her leg let up. It took everything she had to stay on her feet.

Flaca had morphed back and frowning at her, concerned, "It got you, Chapman, we have to..."

Before she could finish, a gunshot rang out, and Piper saw a bullet tear into the girl's side... it must have been silver because Flaca went down hard, swearing profusely and grabbing at her side.

Piper looked up and saw a figure running at them from the direction of the camp, where she could see the fight was winding down. From what she could tell the squad was winning, but clearly this Scavenger wasn't prepared to concede anything. the Scavenger was small, thin, compact, and could've been either a man or a woman. Piper's leg was in agony, she was concerned about Flaca and how badly the wolf was hurt, and by the time she spotted the attacker, they were already nearly to her. The attacker slammed into her (sending her gun flying) before she could consider a defense, bearing her to the ground and snarling, "Well, aren't you a pretty one, Blondie!" (the voice confirmed she was a woman, her accent, rather bizarrely, marked her as Australian)

She was wearing the usual random collection of threadbare clothes and mismatched armor, covered in a sheen of mud and blood and other substances that Piper didn't want to think about too hard, and her scent, like that of most of the Scavengers, was powerful and distracting. Her arms were bare, and Piper noted they were covered in tattoos as the woman punched her in the face.

Piper barely felt the blow, and she could hardly concentrate on the woman now raising her pistol to point at her face. All she could feel was the pain radiating from her leg, all she could think of was the poison leaching into her system. The longer she fucked around here, the more time it would have to work its way through her bloodstream. The average zombie bite to a lower extremity would take a day to kill someone depending on the person, and maybe twice that if they got the drugs fast enough... she did not have time for this.

Gritting her teeth, she whipped her hand up and knocked the woman's gun hand out of the way just as she pulled the trigger. The noise was deafening and the impact close to Piper's ear. A wave of adrenaline hit her and, in a sudden movement, she jerked her right hand up and hit the woman hard in the face, staggering her just enough that Piper could buck her off. She flipped over and scrambled on her hands and knees the two feet towards where her rifle had landed. She laid hands on it and turned over again raising it, pointy end first (the first lesson Alex had ever taught her, she thought darkly), just as the Scavenger rather unwisely jumped to tackle her again.

The Scavenger couldn't stop her momentum and ended up taking the knife on the end of Piper's rifle right in the middle of the chest. A loud, dying animal moan ripped itself from the Scavenger's lungs as she collapsed, and Piper, the danger over, and unable to support the other woman's entire weight, let the rifle slip from her hands again. Her attacker's body collapsed onto Piper's legs, causing a new wave of agony to rip through her... and all she could think was how fucking unfair it was that she was going to leave Alex this way.

* * *

Lorna and Washington's driver Ford had called in back up and a medical unit the minute they'd reported the ambush. By the time the reinforcements and med truck arrived, the fight was nearly over. As the fresh troops arrived and the med teams deployed out into the field to help the injured, Alex, covered in blood and Infected guts, finally allowed herself to relax her battle focus slightly, expand back to her normal level of sensory awareness, to take a deep breath and try to calm herself.

On instinct, the first thing she did was try to locate Piper, and it only took seconds for her to realize something was wrong. Piper's scent was off, her breathing tortured, she was making a low moaning noise that could only mean she was hurt. Alex was at her side before the medics even noticed she was injured, just in time to see Piper try to push the body of a Scavenger off of her and try to stand. She collapsed almost immediately, and Alex caught her, lowering her gently to the ground. Alex didn't even need to look to see that Piper had been bitten, she could sense it... and it took everything in her power to keep the devastation off her face.

Piper's eyes were unfocused, she was sweating and shaking and every movement seemed to cause her tremendous pain. Once she was lying back down, Alex turned to the nearest medics, who were working on Flaca, and called out, "We got a bite here!"

She could hear a med team breaking off to run towards them. "Help's coming, Pipes, just hold on..."

Piper looked into Alex's eyes and shook her head sharply, "I've been bitten..."

"I know, but..."

The medics arrived, and knelt down, assessing the situation. Before they could do anything, even ask Alex to move out of the way, Piper reached up and clamped her hand around the vampire's neck, pulling her closer, but speaking loudly enough that the medics could hear as well, "I want you... to turn me..." she said, forcing the words out as her eyes lost focus again. Before she could say anything more, she lost consciousness, sinking into the black fog of the infection.

Alex looked up. Ingalls, the senior human medical officer in camp, kneeling on Piper's other side, was looking at her, her eyes wide, stunned by Piper's words. Alex met her eyes and let out a long breath, " _Jesus..._ "

* * *

The med unit had quickly identified the most severely injured troops and loaded them on to the fast, agile, lightly armored med transport trucks for the trip back to the camp.

Every single second that passed seemed interminable to Alex. They'd made one pass at trying to get her to leave Piper's side, but after she'd straight up bared her fangs at the medic, they'd backed off. When the truck got there, she stayed next to Piper and held her hand as the blonde, in immense pain from the bite in her calf and the poison slowly leaching through her veins, gritted her teeth and groaned even in her unconscious state.

As they drove, they determined that amputation wasn't going to be an option. It had spread too far by the time they reached her, well and truly leached into her bloodstream. Alex cursed herself again for not getting to Piper fast enough, even though objectively she knew there was nothing she could've done. The fight had been in full swing, and no one had even realized she'd been bitten until she'd pushed the little Aussie off of her and tried to stand up... it had been too late even then.

When they got back to camp, Washington's squad and Alex's all went into the quarantine building, but instead of just being checked and released into general medical like everyone else, Piper was put into one of the quarantine rooms. It was a 12 by 12 room split in two, one half a standard medical room, the other an observation room where someone stood guard 24 hours a day when the room was occupied. The outside walls were sturdy, thick concrete, the inner door made of heavy steel and secured with two huge physical locks and mechanical one that only admitted medical staff and the highest ranking officers in camp.

It was where they kept people who'd been infected and it was rarely used. Generally if someone was bitten, they were in a desperate enough situation that they died in the field, either consumed by whatever had bitten them, or killed by one of their squadmates, usually at their own request (aside from Piper, three other troops had been bitten, two had died, one had asked to be shot). Piper had asked for something else altogether, something that no one had ever asked for before, and it automatically changed procedures.

So now she lay in the bed in the quarantine room, restraints on her wrists and ankles, drugs flowing through her veins to try to arrest the inexorable progress of the virus and keep her unconscious and at least marginally pain free... and Alex sat by her side Red wasn't happy about having her so close to someone who'd been bitten, no one was, but Piper was restrained and Alex was fast and strong, so she allowed it, in part because she knew moving Alex would be impossible.

Alex was silent and stoic, getting out of the way of the doctors when they came in, but otherwise never letting go of the blonde's hand. Listening to her slow, shallow breathing, to her heart laboring to pump the blood through her veins even as the poison inside her was turning it sluggish and thick in a way that would eventually kill her.

The doctors gave Piper 48 hours, and that was if the drugs continued counteracting the poison at their current rate, and Alex was not going to leave her. She wanted to curse herself for loving Piper. She wanted to tell herself she was an idiot for allowing it to happen, for letting Piper get under her skin and burrow into the heart that hadn't beaten for over a century... but she couldn't bring herself to do it. She couldn't force herself to regret a single second of their time together. It hadn't been ideal, it never could have been, not with the lives that they had to live, but they had forged a connection and carved out room in their lives for one another and it had felt really fucking good, better than anything she'd felt since she'd been human.

No. She would never regret what they'd had... but she could sure as hell curse every god in the universe for taking it all away from her like this. Curse herself because she had forgotten just how fragile life was out here... allowed herself to think that maybe this could've been, if not forever, than at least for decades.

And deep down, maybe she could hate herself too... for having the power to keep Piper with her but hesitating for even the barest moment to use it.

* * *

It was two hours after the squads had returned. They'd all debriefed and had medical assessments, going either to the med tent or off to their barracks, and now the three commanders had cleared the command tent to discuss their next move.

Mendoza paced restlessly, her jaw set, her eyes blazing, "Girl could've made it a whole lot easier she'd asked Vause to put a bullet in her rather than fuckin' turn her..."

Claudette, who was leaning on the command table, staring at the map in front of her, unseeing shook her head, "Chapman has never been one for the easy way..." her voice was heavy with worry. She had become fond of Piper, seeming to find her amusing rather than grating as some did. She sighed, a deep, heavy breath, and then stood up straight, folding her arms across her chest, getting to the matter at hand. There would be time to grieve later, "... but she _did_ request to be turned, and so it must be discussed..."

Mendoza stopped and glared at her, "What's to discuss? The answer's obviously _fuck no_..."

"And why is that, Mendoza?" asked Red, one eyebrow raised. She was sitting calmly in one of the camp chairs scattered throughout the command room, her preternatural stillness in direct contrast to Mendoza's restlessness. Even when she wasn't agitated, Gloria was seemingly always in motion.

"Cause it ain't allowed!" Mendoza growled. "My people don't go around biting whoever wanders a-fuckin' long..."

"Your people can't turn anyone immortal... becoming a wolf doesn't stop the Infection... becoming a vampire does..."

"That's only _if_ the process actually works..." muttered Claudette, frowning. " that's why we don't usually allow it..."

"But... it's not specifically forbidden," Red put in.

"Don't go there, Red," snapped Mendoza, "You _know_ turning folks is breaking the rules. Just cause we never set it down in stone doesn't mean it's all right..."

Claudette sighed, "The girl wants it."

"I don't care what the fucking girl wants!" Mendoza smacked her hand on the table to emphasize her point, "We've had other people want it before too, didn't allow it then neither."

"Those other people were idiot wannabes," said Red, frowning, "Kids who thought being a vampire would be fun or powerful. This girl was _dying_ when she asked... she _knew_ what she was asking for..."

Mendoza sighed, running a hand through her close cropped hair, "Yeah, I know..."

"Dying because she was saving Gonzalez's life..." the Russian added, pointedly.

"I _get that_. And don't think I'm not grateful. I am... but... people get bit all the time. Human, wolf... even you pale motherfuckers. Don't make her any more or less special'n anyone else."

"None of them have ever requested this," Claudette said, "This is a situation that is unique. Unprecedented in the fifteen years we have been here..."

Mendoza shook her head, "Look, even if I agree the girl wants it... and I'm not even going to go into the fact she may not be thinking so straight right now, we have to think about Vause..."

"You're so concerned about Vause now?" asked Red, raising her eyebrows.

"She ain't my favorite, but she's good. Helps keep all of us alive, and I like people can help keep all of us alive... anything happens to her, it weakens us... this girl... she was just a regular human with regular human blood, that woulda been one thing... but she's been bitten... you know what happens when you all drink from someone's been bitten."

An uncomfortable hush fell over the tent. After a long moment, Red sighed, "That doesn't happen every time. Or even most of the time. There's so few documented cases, there's not even reliable proof that it's because of the tainted blood that..."

"Well there's enough documented cases that I don't want to see it happen anywhere near here. The infection gets her..."

"If she does it fast enough, doesn't actually ingest the blood, maybe it won't..."

"It goes wrong, Chapman will still be dead, but Vause will be a slavering fucking maniac. You want to risk that?"

Red sighed, "We'll take them out somewhere. That development where Vause found her in the first place. Put a guard up..."

"Use all those resources for this one thing? Chapman worth it?"

"It might be a moot point," Claudette put in.

"Why?"

"Vause may refuse."

Mendoza frowned, raising an eyebrow, "She'd refuse her girl?"

"Make your argument easier wouldn't it?" asked Red coolly.

"The _fuck_ you mean by that?" Mendoza narrowed her eyes, "You think I _want_ Chapman to die?"

Red shook her head, "No... no of course not..." she sighed, "Vause made a promise a long time ago never to turn anyone. Doesn't think being a vampire is such a treat, necessarily. Doesn't want to curse anyone else with it. Especially not for selfish reasons..."

Mendoza sighed, "But if she does?"

"Then I say we let her. The pact was made to prevent us turning people for our own purposes or for the selfish whims of humans who just think they want immortality for sport. This is not that. Because she wants it..."

Claudette nodded, "I... agree... if we can make it safe..."

Mendoza sighed, releasing a stream of Spanish swear words under her breath, before finally looking up, brown eyes clouded but still fierce as they bit into Red's crimson edged blue ones, "Fine... fine... if she _wants_ it..."

* * *

"She wants it," Nicky said. She was standing with Alex in Piper's room, watching the blonde. The Infection was far enough advanced that she was turning a bit gray, but her heart still beat, and her chest still rose and fell, slowly but steadily. Every so often she would stir, not enough to wake, but enough to put a furrow between her brows, a grimace on her face. And it hit Alex hard every time, knowing that the pain was so great that it was affecting her even in this state.

Alex ran a hand through her hair and let her eyes drift over to where Piper lay, "I swore I would never do it."

"I know you did. All you bitey motherfuckers did to even get in here..."

"No, Nick, I _swore_ before that... way before that. I was never going to turn anyone. Ever."

"Alex..."

"What if she hates it? hates me for it? It's not easy, Nicky. I went through it. The first week feels like you're going to die. The first year feels awful..."

"It did for you since you were pretty much alone. It might not for her. She'll have you and the other bloodsuckers to help her out..."

"I've seen people go fucking insane. So have you! To go from being a goddamn normal person to suddenly seeing every other human being as a snack? "

"She _wants_ it, Vause," Nicky repeated, "And you know the most important thing?"

Alex sighed, dropping her head into her hands, "What?"

"She's gonna die if you don't. The infection's gonna spread, and it's gonna kill her brain and then someone's gonna have to put a goddamn bullet in her..."

"Nicky..." Alex's eyes were squeezed shut, teeth gritted.

"It's the fucking truth... we both know it. The second she was bitten she was dead. Unless you do this."

"It could kill us both."

"Yeah. I know. But somehow I think maybe you're under the impression that it might be better that way."

Alex didn't look up.

"Alex... Alex, look. You know you'll never forgive yourself if you don't. You'll always wonder _what if_... and quite frankly you can talk about being all noble and shit, but I'm the one who has to fuckin' live with you for the next hundred years if you don't do it. You'll be all brooding and morose and..."

"I'm hot when I brood."

Nicky half smiled, "Yeah I know you are... I know what happened in the past was bad. Real bad, and I know that the consequences of this could be just as bad, but for once you've gotta give into your damn heart a little bit, you know?"

Alex sighed deeply, running a hand through her hair as she looked through the window at Piper. She couldn't help but think that giving into her heart was a large part of the reason she was in this situation in the first place...

* * *

Alex had been sitting, turning Nicky's words over in her head for little more than twenty minutes when she sensed Red coming. It was a sign of just how distracted she was by Piper's condition and the way her proximity was overwhelming her senses that she didn't become fully aware of the elder vampire's presence until she was just outside the door.

She squeezed Piper's hand gently before standing up and turning towards the door just as Red entered the room. For anyone else who wasn't medical staff, she'd have stayed seated, but Red was different. Most of what humans thought of as the whole "vampire deal" with everyone being , as Piper had put it, "all courtly and polite" was bullshit, but if there was one things vampires recognized it was seniority. Anyone who had been around as long as Red had didn't have to _demand_ respect, it was simply something they were given.

Red glanced over Alex's shoulder at Piper, then met Alex's eyes. She didn't have to ask how the blonde was, she'd probably known before she even entered the room, even without looking at the medical reports. Never one for sentiment in the first place, Red got right to the point.

"She hasn't got more than four hours at this rate."

Alex didn't reply. She knew it was true, but acknowledging it felt like it would make it more real than she wanted it to be.

"Mendoza, Claudette and I have talked it over..."

"'Talked it over?'"

"Well, Mendoza and I glared at each other while Claudette talked sense."

"And?" Alex felt everything inside her tense.

"We've decided. We're going to allow you to turn her."

"What?"

"She wants it. And as long as you want it..."

"And if I end up a superpowered mad dog?"

"Then we'll put you down. If we must. But that's a chance we'll have to take."

"Piper won't be able to be around people for at least a month."

"I know. You can take care of her, yes? Show her the way."

Alex frowned slightly at that. She'd never had to show anyone any sort of way before. She nodded tersely, then added, "And everyone was okay with this?"

"Everyone who matters. In every way that matters," Red fixed her with an appraising look, "The only thing left now, Vause, is whether or not you wish to do it?"

Alex looked over at Piper's still form. her breathing rate was getting slower by the minute at this point. She didn't have long. "I'll do it..."

* * *

Things moved quickly after that, the logistics being worked out moment by moment, everyone hoping that they were covering everything they needed to. Red immediately called two members of the med staff in to start securing Piper for transport. She sent Nicky, who had been lingering outside the quarantine building, to get Alex's squad and Mendoza's up and ready to move. Two squads seemed like overkill to Alex, but Red wasn't taking any chances. If Alex was turned, she would be far more dangerous than anything they'd faced for a good long while, possibly ever.

The two squads would leave their human members at home and backfill the ranks with other wolves and vampires, the better to keep any portable feasts away from a newly turned vampire (or, if it all went wrong, a mindless, rabid Infected one). If there was one blessing about all this bullshit it was the timing. It was near midnight, a week before the full moon. The wolves were as strong as they were going to get without being forced to transform. A few days later, they'd all have been out on their monthly run...

As the troops got suited up and equipped, Piper was loaded onto a med transport truck, Alex and one of the medics, Jones (a vampire nearly as old as Red, but not nearly as ambitious), in the back with her, Nicky driving. The two squads loaded into two of the troop carriers, Mendoza muttering all the while about the waste of fuel and resources, Red glaring back at her. They set off less than a half hour after Alex had said yes. Red stayed behind.

Mendoza was the ranking officer, and was fully prepared to call the whole thing off if there was even the hint of trouble but the convoy ran into nothing more than a couple of stray Infected on their way back to the development Alex had initially found Piper in.

After the house and surrounding area had been cleared, Alex and Nicky had carried Piper up on a stretcher and deposited her on the bed. Mendoza followed them up and she and Nicky did a final security check on the room. Mendoza gave Alex a hard look (as though Alex needed a reminder that she wasn't happy about any of this), then turned and headed back out of the room.

Nicky looked from Piper, pale and gray in the light of the nearly full moon streaming in through the windows, back to Alex before she hooked her thumb back over her shoulder, "I'll be right outside the door, a'right? Keep your radio live. I'm the only one keyed into your channel. I hear things go to shit..." the wolf stopped abruptly, not quite able to bring herself to continue.

"Yeah," Alex clapped her hard on the shoulder, held her eyes for a long moment. There were a lot of things she wanted to say, but none of them would even begin to be adequate.

Nicky nodded, short and sharp, and then turned back towards the door, "See you on the other side, Vause..."

"yeah..."

The door shut behind Nicky with finality and Piper and Alex were alone again...

Alex knelt down next to the bed. She was wearing only her fatigues. Her weapons and equipment had been taken from her, just in case this didn't work and she was Infected. The drugs that they'd used to keep Piper knocked out were wearing off, and she was drifting in and out of consciousness. Alex took her hand. There wasn't a lot of time...

"I'm so fucking selfish. I'm risking everything, my life, yours, even the unit's for this... because I'm too weak to let you go..."

"No..." Piper managed, "... no..."

Piper's eyes were half closed, unfocused, looking at Alex, but only occasionally seeing, the Infection reflected in the fact that the cobalt blue had slowly faded... so light that it almost blended with the white. The pain she must have been in was probably immense, although the drugs were keeping the very worst of it at bay. She was clutching at Alex's hand weakly, reflexively.

She was too weak to argue anymore, probably mere moments away from death, even with the drugs, but Alex could hear her voice echoing in her head. Telling her that it wasn't selfish to want things, to try to save people you loved. She closed her eyes, took a deep shaky breath. Maybe. Maybe she was right. If this worked, Piper could make all the arguments she wanted. And if it didn't... well, Alex probably wouldn't be around long to regret it...

* * *

Nicky often asked Alex what it was like, to feed off another person. Alex had always told her to fuck off, not just because she didn't like to talk about the times she had done it (not her proudest moments generally), but because it was nearly impossible to put into words. It was more like a series of feelings, sensations she felt deep within herself... It was blissful and lovely and terrifying and horrible and it made her feel like a god and a monster at the same time. Once a vampire started feeding, the sensations were usually so overwhelming it was nearly impossible to stop.

It took a particular kind of vampire to drink from someone without killing, a great deal of willpower, and an even more particular kind to actually turn someone. It required precision and control and not everyone could do it, something that Alex had learned much to her (literally) eternal regret when she'd tried to turn her mother. And to turn someone who was Infected, especially as far along as Piper, without getting a secondary Infection... well, that was even more difficult, not least because no one knew exactly how secondary Infections worked.

For all Red's blithe assertions about things that would and wouldn't happen, there hadn't been nearly enough attempted, and the stories were so scattered and anecdotal that no one knew what the common denominators were, what made one person into a slavering, near unstoppable vampire zombie hybrid and what let another walk away completely unharmed. So really, Alex was just guessing.

The process was as far from the other times she'd fed off Piper as should could get and the fleeting thought that she hoped this didn't affect their sex life negatively ran through her head before it was chased off by a low, tortured moan from Piper. Being turned was a painful process under any circumstance, but with the Infection already putting her in terrible pain already. The key to turning someone was balance, taking just enough blood, giving her just enough of the substance she produced that would turn Piper... Too much either way and it would kill Piper rather than turning her, and knowing how much was enough was all instinct.

And she couldn't actually drink any of Piper's blood, which made the whole thing messy as hell in addition... another pained groan... Piper didn't have long. She couldn't hesitate anymore, couldn't worry. She'd made her decision and now she had to just do it. There could be no more hesitation. Piper's life hung in the balance.

Alex took a deep breath, leaned down, kissed Piper once, said "I love you," and then sank her teeth into the blonde's neck...

* * *

Piper Chapman's first life ended with a quiet exhalation of her last breath, so quiet that the only people who heard it were the vampire who was working towards turning her and the werewolf immediately on the other side of the door who tensed immediately, waiting to see if the blonde would come back... and if she would be the only one shut in the room who was transformed.

Her body, up until that point held rigid with the pain that had been coursing through it ever since the drugs wore off completely some thirty minutes previous, relaxed and went limp, her heart, tortured and struggling with the effort of pushing blood full of the Infection through her veins, beat its last and went still.

Alex detached herself from the blonde's neck and leaned back on her heels, exhausted from the effort of what she'd just done, watching Piper intently. It took several minutes for the change to take hold after the person being turned had died. She didn't spare a thought to whether she might also be changing. She figured if that were going to happen Nicky would take care of her as she had promised.

It was the longest five minutes of her existence...

* * *

Piper's second life began with a scream. A long, horrifying scream torn from the depths of her soul. If she had thought the pain she had felt after being Infected had been intense, she had been sorely mistaken. It felt as though every cell in her body was on fire.

The pain was so severe that it blocked out everything else: who she was, _what_ she was... which led to a brief but all consuming terror at this lack of knowledge... but that lasted hardly twenty seconds before the pain began to intermingle with something else... something much, much worse...

 _ **hunger**_

She inhales a breath, not because she needs to breathe, but because she's trying to find food, and she smells it... living blood, at least a dozen beings outside, and she can hear them, voices and footsteps and the sound of people getting into vehicles, trucks starting... as though it's in the room with her... so many sounds, so many sensations... it almost drowns out the pang in her stomach...

She sits up on the bed... opens her eyes... there is no light in the room except the soft glow of the moon, but it's as bright as day to her. She can see everything with crystal clarity (though tinged with red)... including the person sitting next to her... the pain is slowly fading, but the hunger and the assault of her newly enhanced senses are now combining to muddle her brain. She can't think straight. But she _knows_ the person sitting next to her.

Another breath. A familiar scent, a combination of disparate elements that triggers something deep inside her rapidly waking brain. A name floats to the surface... Alex.

It stops her from springing off the bed and out the window, from pursuing the beating hearts that are rapidly disappearing down the road in their trucks, leaving only her and Alex in the house.

Alex looks into her eyes, and there is relief and some anxiety in her face, but she doesn't speak yet. She opens up a sealed cooler at her feet and pulls out six clear bags... they are filled with blood and the scent is overwhelming. She loses her resolve to be calm, grabs the bags one after the other and drinks them dry.

By the time she finishes draining the sixth one, the pain has gone, the hunger has abated (though not disappeared entirely), and she can think again. Her senses are still so highly attuned that she feels like everything in a half mile radius is _inside_ her head with her, but it's like Alex can read her mind. She reaches over and grasps Piper's shoulders. Alex looks into her eyes for a long moment, neither of them saying a word, neither of them needing to.

Piper knows the misgivings Alex had about doing this. Knows that Alex feels selfish for having risked it, that she fears that Piper will regret it, will hate this life. But she also knows that Alex is relieved that it has worked and that, in the end, she will live with whatever guilt and regret she might have because Piper is here with her, alive.

And for her part, Piper isn't sure she cares whether she ends up hating immortality, if she will feel like a monster with her heart that doesn't beat and her need to drink the life's blood of other living creatures. Because in the long run she will pay that price for the possibility of being with Alex Vause forever.

She leans forward and kisses Alex hard, and Alex puts her arms around her and kisses her back, and their new life together begins...

* * *

They're away from camp for nearly a month and a half while Alex teaches Piper all the things that she herself never had the luxury of learning during those first few months of her own second life. It's strangely reminiscent of when Piper had first gotten to camp, with Alex patiently teaching her how to live her new life, training her in all the skills she would need to survive. Learning how to control the hunger, how to harness her strength, how to manage the powers.

Alex expected her to regret the decision, but she didn't understand that as far as Piper was concerned, it was the only decision she could've made. The choice was between losing Alex or having her for eternity... Piper would've sacrificed about anything. Immortality wasn't such a bad thing to have as long as they had it together.

On midnight of the forty sixth day, they packed up their equipment (the squad had left a cache of equipment for them as soon as they knew Alex had succeeded in turning Piper) and set off into the night, heading in the direction of the ARAC camp. Alex had decided the day before that Piper was ready, that she had enough control over her appetite that she wouldn't give into it on a whim. There would obviously be a period of adjustment, where she'd have to get used to being around all those beating hearts, where the blood of the living would call to her, and it would be more difficult than being out here with Alex, miles away from the nearest person, the only live creatures nearby the animals in the woods, but Alex believed she could do it, and Piper didn't want to let her down.

As they walked, weapons ready, alert for any sign of anything, living or dead stirring in the trees around them, Alex thought about her own past, her own life after she had been changed. There had been some very rough years, especially after she'd first been turned, years when what she was doing was more like _existing_ than _living_. Red had kept her from simply walking out when the sun was up, letting it do its work, and then she'd met Nicky and had finally found someone she could truly call a friend, and things got tolerable, better... but she still had no direction... the Infection, tragic though it had been, had given her a purpose, put her skills to good use... allowed her to feel useful.

However, walking back up the road towards the camp that had been her home for nearly two decades, side by side with Piper Chapman, she realized that what she had felt before had been nothing in comparison to this, that perhaps what she had really needed in her life was someone to share it with. And as reluctant as she had been to turn Piper in the first place, it was a comfort to know that that person would be around forever...

* * *

 **A/N** \- Well there ya go. That one was extra long, like a double sized bonus issue of a comic book or something (yes I am a nerd). Thanks to everyone who stuck with me for this long and endured the whole "waiting for chapter 3" thing. Review if you feel like you wanna. Extra special super end of fic shout outs to NightsLightss and reverse-swing for being spectacular and inspiring people. :)


End file.
